Sorlock hate

[Anewbys]

Will I get a lot of flack for playing a sorlock? I got the impression a player changed groups when he found out I was playing a hexblade/divine soul sorlock. I feel like I have good reasons for doing so and plan on doing more than just spamming EB.

[Boci]

Depends on the person. Some people just don't like multiclassing, they see it as exploiting the rules and not how the game is meant to be played, an attitude that can easily be toxic if you're not careful with it. But at least they changed groups rather than stay and make a problem out of it. Did they specify its the multiclassing they disliked? It could be the favoured soul part, I hear that's considered too powerful by some.

[Arkhios]

Depends on the person. Some people just don't like multiclassing, they see it as exploiting the rules and not how the game is meant to be played, an attitude that can easily be toxic if you're not careful with it. But at least they changed groups rather than stay and make a problem out of it. Did they specify its the multiclassing they disliked? It could be the favoured soul part, I hear that's considered too powerful by some.

Not to dispute your point, but I think it's more likely the combination of a sorlock as a whole, not multiclassing itself nor the specific subclasses either. Sorcerer can churn out stupendous amount of new spell slots and/or sorcery points with Font of Magic, and warlock regains all their spell slots (Pact Magic only) after a short rest, creating seemingly infinite supply for Font of Magic. I say seemingly, because it really isn't all that infinite as people claim it to be. (Sorlocks are also often referred to as "Coffeelocks" as they can go on long periods of time (days, even) without taking a long rest, as if having drank pots and pots of coffee).

The way I see it, the "hate" stems from the fact that a sorlock is capable of maintaining a ridiculously plentiful pool of spell slots for a long time. Some people seem to think that's "overpowered" and that somehow their characters would lose their own opportunities to shine.... Guys, please. You can only cast one or two spells each turn. And you won't - ever - be able to solo encounters on your own. You still need a group, or else the enemies, on their turns, respectively, will single you out and take you out faster than you can say Clockwork Orange or whatever.

Also, regarding sorcery points. At any given time, you cannot have more points than equal to your sorcerer level, so you literally can't burn your spell slots and hoard sorcery points beyond that limit. Any excess points are lost and, in other words, wasted.

...and then there's the action economy to consider as well. It still takes one bonus action to either create a spell slot with sorcery points or sorcery points from a single spell slot. At a time. One bonus action each time you do one or the other.

Yes, sorlock can be powerful, but it doesn't come without a heavy price. That price comes with limits you still must abide to. Regardless of your need to sleep.

[Nifft]

Yeah if you're not abusing the sorcery point -> spell slot mechanic and avoiding long rests, then there's not much to hate.

Without any abuse, it's a fine combo with significant power, but not really hate-worthy.

[Kadesh]

Will I get a lot of flack for playing a sorlock? I got the impression a player changed groups when he found out I was playing a hexblade/divine soul sorlock. I feel like I have good reasons for doing so and plan on doing more than just spamming EB.

It was the hallmark of a combination that potentially allowed a character to never sleep, and spend every moment of their downtime by short resting, burning their Warlock Spell Slots for Sorcery Points, and then spending them on getting new spell slots. At the cost of higher level spells on time, they got the ability to spam out mid level spells much more often.

There were lots of 'rules' arguments against it: such as needing to sleep or else gaining exhaustion, but certain combinations allow it to bypass that, such as having a friendly party member cast Greater Restoration to where it is legally pretty much bombproof legal except for a DM adjudicating otherwise (which is what matters).

I'm also intrigued as to hear a reason for a combination of classes that doesn't break down past a convoluted reasoning of 'I liked the mechanical interactions, and created a backstory to explain it'. Which is okay, don't get me wrong, we're all here to have fun, but its rare you ever get people playing Cleric/Paladin multiclasses which can be explained with reasons, but every sorlock or palalock you see has 'reasons'.

I too fall into that category, and all I said to my DM was I want to be able to Smite Twice on a single hit. I'm ignoring the built in fluff, and saying he is basically a Roman Legionary who gets angry and hits things really hard.

[sophontteks]

I don't like multiclassing, but the charisma casters do make it very tempting. There are many archtypes which all but require multiclassing too, like I'm playing a storm sorcerer. Despite my aversion to multiclassing, its pretty much essential to be able to use the abilities of my archtype.

But multiclassing is a double-edged sword. Are you hurting yourself in the short run to give yourself an end-game advantage you may never see?

Setting yourself back 1 or 2 levels on an ASI early to mid game is crippling and many of the things you are MCing for seem really great on paper, in isolation, but in actual gameplay with teammates covering your weaknesses, its much less important.

Consider the role you want your character to perform, and the roles your party is already performing. Is multiclassing emphasizing your role or hindering it? Is multiclassing required for you to play you concept, or are you fishing for the most abilities you can get your hands on?

Both sorcerer and warlock have very tempting abilities for MC. Sorcerer metamagic is freaking amazing. Warlock blasting too, is very awesome. But these classes can stand on their own. Its just a matter of if you need the blasting or the metamagic to see your concept through.

Metamagic is so strong. Subtle spell alone allows so many other class concepts to shine, its hard to reject a sorcerer dip on that alone.

[Segev]

For Paladin multiclasses, I can see a need for some "reasons" to "justify" IC, but... sorlock? What's the need to justify anything? Start as a sorcerer? "I have magical heritage." Multiclass into warlock? "I made a deal with an entity for different/greater power than I could get on my own."

Start as warlock, multiclass into sorcerer? "Part of my patron's gifts include altering me to have magical powers as if I'd inherited them."

It's really not hard. It isn't even "reasons" more than any other. Why do you need more "justification" than "I wanted to build this way?" It's not like there's some fluff contradiction between the classes that needs reconciliation.

[ProseBeforeHos]

It's probably the cheesiest of all multi-classing builds.

Very strong and little to no imagination required.

As for "will you get flack?" Depends on your party/style of game. If you're playing a heavy RP style game I wouldn't recommend it. For a meat-grinder it's someone expected that you optimize.

None of this counts for the so called "coffee-lock" which is just broken stupidity and should be nixed by any sane DM.

[Sigreid]

I wouldn't worry about it. For everything that exists there is someone who hates it with a burning passion.

[rbstr]

While it's not the most rational thing I definitely pre-judge sorlock characters as being built around "optimization" rather than a character concept.

Also I'm a fan of Warlock beyond the sort of cheesy stuff the Sorlock can do and I really wish more people would take Warlock to higher levels. In practice I find it to be much better than its reputation.

[KorvinStarmast]

Will I get a lot of flack for playing a sorlock? I got the impression a player changed groups when he found out I was playing a hexblade/divine soul sorlock. I feel like I have good reasons for doing so and plan on doing more than just spamming EB. If you start with 1 level in sorc and go lock for the rest, there's some good things you can do for your party.
Check out these two posts for a build that went that way with Pact of the Tome.
Post 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22794682&postcount=17)

Post 2 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22797960&postcount=45)

[Segev]

I have not seen one in play, but coffeelocks strike me as something that sounds great on paper, but might fall apart in real play as you run into situations where you aren't able to get the requisite number of spammed short rests between instances of needing to cast your spells.

And, even if so, it plays like a Warlock who's using spells as invocations, since he's undercutting his pact features and his invocation count for sorcerer spells.

In the end, it just lets the coffeelock spam like a sorcerer a few levels behind. Especially if he's burning stored spell slots for SP to fuel metamagic. It doesn't actually help him have more Concentration spells up; at best there, it gives him a little more flexibility to swap them out because he can afford the spell slots.

[Spiritchaser]

Have the people you are playing with optimized their characters for mechanical performance?

If so playing an optimized character is likely ok

If not you could be headed for trouble.

In my personal experience, High power parties are fine, as are underpowered ones. Parties with some overpowered characters and some... less powerful characters have sometimes resulted in headaches.

[Anewbys]

I actually feel I have a good reason for going that route. I just started playing AL with my two kids a fighter (daughter didnt want anything with spells) and an Arcane Trickster (son loved rogue but wanted spells). I have always preffered casters and actually started a evocation wizard, but with half or more of the games being just us I was burning through 2 heal pots a game typically, so I thought I would go support. I was excited when I learned about DS sorcerer. I could heal and boom too. After getting knocked around a bit I was looking at ways to be less squishy and had considered going sorcadin but didnt wanna go mellee and steal my daughter's thunder. Then I read about hexblade and it all fell into place. I could boom and with a solid single target spell I could use my limited spells known pool on buffs and aoe, and not be squishy. I am actually gonna change the normal mix up a little and go W3 to get pact of chain and have one of my invocs be gift of everliving ones. I am hoping between that and my periapt of wound closure I would have to be one shot to be killed. Anyhow I plan on being more than a one trick pony but between that player and some threads I read online I was wondering how much flak I would get. Thanks for all your replies.

[mephnick]

While it's not the most rational thing I definitely pre-judge sorlock characters as being built around "optimization" rather than a character concept.

Pretty much. To be fair, I dislike how easily the CHA classes combine and how powerful the outcomes are. I think it's very bad design, even if MCing is a "variant" rule.

[Segev]

Pretty much. To be fair, I dislike how easily the CHA classes combine and how powerful the outcomes are. I think it's very bad design, even if MCing is a "variant" rule.

I hear good things about Fighter/Barbarian multiclasses, and about Fighter dips for Paladin and Ranger.



Monk seems better-designed than ever, but sadly still doesn't seem to "mesh" well with anything else, even as a multiclassing choice.

[Nifft]

I hear good things about Fighter/Barbarian multiclasses, and about Fighter dips for Paladin and Ranger.

Barbarian (Bear Totem) + Rogue (Uncanny Dodge) is another very powerful combo, in terms of defense and flexible attack -- you're either using a big Str melee weapon with Rage perks, or you're using a bow + Sneak Attack perks.

[Citan]

Will I get a lot of flack for playing a sorlock? I got the impression a player changed groups when he found out I was playing a hexblade/divine soul sorlock. I feel like I have good reasons for doing so and plan on doing more than just spamming EB.
Hi!

As long as you pay attention to what other people play and ensure everyone has a defining, distinct "it' my turn to shine" area it should be very fine whatever kind of Sorlock you go.

Only thing to actively avoid is craving for short rest on the pretense that you need it so much as a Warlock. No, you don't since you multiclass Sorcerer. :)

Using short rests that everyone agreed to decide upon, to convert unused short rest slots into SP/long-rest slots is completely normal. It is one of the reasons you decided on that particular multiclass after all.

Trying to make a DM recognize any kind of activity as qualifying as short-rest or blatantly harrassing other people to take one when there is no real need for it will, *legitimately*, rise annoyment and ultimately anger and rejection.

While it's not the most rational thing I definitely pre-judge sorlock characters as being built around "optimization" rather than a character concept.

Also I'm a fan of Warlock beyond the sort of cheesy stuff the Sorlock can do and I really wish more people would take Warlock to higher levels. In practice I find it to be much better than its reputation.
I agree very much with this, although I do always love a big 3-levels dip investment into Sorcerer for Subtle metamagic. Pairs so well with many upcastable Warlock spells... :)

[BlackRose]

Barbarian (Bear Totem) + Rogue (Uncanny Dodge) is another very powerful combo, in terms of defense and flexible attack -- you're either using a big Str melee weapon with Rage perks, or you're using a bow + Sneak Attack perks.

Maybe I'm wrong but all sneak attack says is that you have to use a weapon with the finesse property, not that you have to attack using your dexterity stat. So couldn't you attack using str with a rapier and still get sneak attack on the damage?

[Citan]

Maybe I'm wrong but all sneak attack says is that you have to use a weapon with the finesse property, not that you have to attack using your dexterity stat. So couldn't you attack using str with a rapier and still get sneak attack on the damage?
Yes, completely, you're right.
Many people tend to confuse Sneak Attack's "finesse/ranged weapon" requirement as "use DEX" requirement like for Barbarian's Rage.

While you can use a finesse weapon with STR, thus stacking Rage and Sneak Attack. One of the (many) reasons why people find Rogue / Barbarian a powerful dual class.

[Willie the Duck]

It's probably the cheesiest of all multi-classing builds.


While it's not the most rational thing I definitely pre-judge sorlock characters as being built around "optimization" rather than a character concept.

Also I'm a fan of Warlock beyond the sort of cheesy stuff the Sorlock can do and I really wish more people would take Warlock to higher levels. In practice I find it to be much better than its reputation.

Regardless of any truth, this is probably the reason. This is certainly true of any sorcerer-warlock build, but add onto it hexblade (which is often seen as a full caster that wants to be a close-to-full warrior-type as well) and divine soul sorcerer (seen as wanting your sorcerer cake and eating cleric spells too), and the whole thing sounds like a cheezefest character made simply to exploit every possible multiclassing twist one can find.

I know, I know...


There were lots of 'rules' arguments against it: <etc.>


For Paladin multiclasses, I can see a need for some "reasons" to "justify" IC, but... sorlock? What's the need to justify anything? ...
It's really not hard. It isn't even "reasons" more than any other. Why do you need more "justification" than "I wanted to build this way?" It's not like there's some fluff contradiction between the classes that needs reconciliation.


I actually feel I have a good reason for going that route. <etc.>

...the problem is, you probably don't get the chance to make that argument. Much like the 'oh, I have a logical explanation for that gap in employment on my resume,' or 'no wait, that thing that sounds creepy on my dating profile is actually a good thing,' or 'no really, this drow ranger character I am making is not a Drizzt re-hash, because...,' the person you would really like to make that argument to is long gone, started looking at other job applicants/potential dating matches/people they want to game with. I'm not saying it is right, fair, whatever, but it's probably a real concern.

[Nifft]

Maybe I'm wrong but all sneak attack says is that you have to use a weapon with the finesse property, not that you have to attack using your dexterity stat. So couldn't you attack using str with a rapier and still get sneak attack on the damage?

You absolutely could, though then you discard the benefits of Great Weapon Master / Polearm Master and you live with the smaller weapon damage die size. And that's probably fine, since you get Sneak Attack.

Rapier + Shield on a naked Str/Dex/Con Barbarian is probably quite spiffy.

[Boci]

I'm also intrigued as to hear a reason for a combination of classes that doesn't break down past a convoluted reasoning of 'I liked the mechanical interactions, and created a backstory to explain it'. Which is okay, don't get me wrong, we're all here to have fun, but its rare you ever get people playing Cleric/Paladin multiclasses which can be explained with reasons, but every sorlock or palalock you see has 'reasons'.

I had a half-elf who was a mortal descended of a fey dragon. Draconic sorceror and feypact warlock seemed like a good way to represent that.

[Sorlock Master]

Not to dispute your point, but I think it's more likely the combination of a sorlock as a whole, not multiclassing itself nor the specific subclasses either. Sorcerer can churn out stupendous amount of new spell slots and/or sorcery points with Font of Magic, and warlock regains all their spell slots (Pact Magic only) after a short rest, creating seemingly infinite supply for Font of Magic. I say seemingly, because it really isn't all that infinite as people claim it to be. (Sorlocks are also often referred to as "Coffeelocks" as they can go on long periods of time (days, even) without taking a long rest, as if having drank pots and pots of coffee).

The way I see it, the "hate" stems from the fact that a sorlock is capable of maintaining a ridiculously plentiful pool of spell slots for a long time. Some people seem to think that's "overpowered" and that somehow their characters would lose their own opportunities to shine.... Guys, please. You can only cast one or two spells each turn. And you won't - ever - be able to solo encounters on your own. You still need a group, or else the enemies, on their turns, respectively, will single you out and take you out faster than you can say Clockwork Orange or whatever.

Also, regarding sorcery points. At any given time, you cannot have more points than equal to your sorcerer level, so you literally can't burn your spell slots and hoard sorcery points beyond that limit. Any excess points are lost and, in other words, wasted.

...and then there's the action economy to consider as well. It still takes one bonus action to either create a spell slot with sorcery points or sorcery points from a single spell slot. At a time. One bonus action each time you do one or the other.

Yes, sorlock can be powerful, but it doesn't come without a heavy price. That price comes with limits you still must abide to. Regardless of your need to sleep.

I'm not sure where to begin with this post...

The fact that your trying to say Sorlock is just fine just floors me.

You clearly understand that they use a mechanic which normally has a limit, but in this case doesn't. Let me just throw out what my 5/5 Warlock/Sorcerer was doing just before I dropped him.

I had an assumed 22 AC (Shield spell+DEX+mage armor+Haste) because I usually had a ****ing bagagillion 1st level spell slots, plus enough 3rd level spell slots to cast haste in every encounter. Here is how I would do it.

Long rest ends convert 4 sorcery points into 2 additional first level spells then convert 1 3rd level Warlock spell into sorcery points, then convert the remaining 4 into 2 more first level spells, giving me 7 first level spell slots (1 spent on mage armor), then convert 1 second level Sorc slot and the other 3rd level Lock slot into a 3rd level Sorc slot, take a short rest, I had 7 1st level spells, 1 2nd level spell, and 5 3rd level spells. Prior to any additional short rests.

The idea that a 10th level charcter can have 22 AC, 100ish HP, get 3 attacks, and have enough spell slots to vomit fireballs all over the place seems pretty OP already.

Now add the mechanics of having multiclassed into paladin without actually doing so. Stacking the ability to Smite people on top of the already 3 attacks with the spell slots to do it.

I'm sure nothing bad could occur.

[Arkhios]

I'm not sure where to begin with this post...

The fact that your trying to say Sorlock is just fine just floors me.

You clearly understand that they use a mechanic which normally has a limit, but in this case doesn't. Let me just throw out what my 5/5 Warlock/Sorcerer was doing just before I dropped him.

I had an assumed 22 AC (Shield spell+DEX+mage armor+Haste) because I usually had a ****ing bagagillion 1st level spell slots, plus enough 3rd level spell slots to cast haste in every encounter. Here is how I would do it.

Long rest ends convert 4 sorcery points into 2 additional first level spells then convert 1 3rd level Warlock spell into sorcery points, then convert the remaining 4 into 2 more first level spells, giving me 7 first level spell slots (1 spent on mage armor), then convert 1 second level Sorc slot and the other 3rd level Lock slot into a 3rd level Sorc slot, take a short rest, I had 7 1st level spells, 1 2nd level spell, and 5 3rd level spells. Prior to any additional short rests.

The idea that a 10th level charcter can have 22 AC, 100ish HP, get 3 attacks, and have enough spell slots to vomit fireballs all over the place seems pretty OP already.

Now add the mechanics of having multiclassed into paladin without actually doing so. Stacking the ability to Smite people on top of the already 3 attacks with the spell slots to do it.

I'm sure nothing bad could occur.

That's exactly the kind of abuse Nifft referred to. Sorlock is fine, heck, great even, but hardly hateworthy *unless you abuse that mechanic like you suggested*. When you do that, you make the combination into the monster you hate so much. GG.

[Segev]

That's exactly the kind of abuse Nifft referred to. Sorlock is fine, heck, great even, but hardly hateworthy *unless you abuse that mechanic like you suggested*

He's also ignoring what a 10th level Sorcerer or Warlock could do, which is what he's competing against. 5th level spell access is a pretty big advantage over tons of freedom to spam third level spells. And the Sorcerer is getting much more oomph out of those fireballs (or other element-of-choice spell) based on his 6th level class feature. The 10th level Warlock is not-quite spamming 5th level spells every combat, almost as much as the 5/5 Sorlock is spamming 3rds.

The 5/5 Sorlock's not awful; that kind of stamina makes for a fun and reliable build. But the 10th level characters going straight one or the other are doing more impressive things, if not always as often.

[Nifft]

He's also ignoring what a 10th level Sorcerer or Warlock could do, which is what he's competing against. 5th level spell access is a pretty big advantage over tons of freedom to spam third level spells. And the Sorcerer is getting much more oomph out of those fireballs (or other element-of-choice spell) based on his 6th level class feature. The 10th level Warlock is not-quite spamming 5th level spells every combat, almost as much as the 5/5 Sorlock is spamming 3rds.

The 5/5 Sorlock's not awful; that kind of stamina makes for a fun and reliable build. But the 10th level characters going straight one or the other are doing more impressive things, if not always as often.

What?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying.

5/5 split appears nowhere in my post. I'm talking about coffeelocks, which might be 2/8 split, and as such have an arbitrary number of level 5 slots (though they don't know any level 5 spells, they can upcast just like anyone else).

[Arkhios]

What?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying.

5/5 split appears nowhere in my post. I'm talking about coffeelocks, which might be 2/8 split, and as such have an arbitrary number of level 5 slots (though they don't know any level 5 spells, they can upcast just like anyone else).

I believe Segev meant Sorlock Master with that "he", not you :)
...also, while nitpicking, your example can't upcast to 5th level slots, because pact magic and regular spellcasting don't stack.

[Segev]

What?

No, that's not at all what I'm saying.

5/5 split appears nowhere in my post. I'm talking about coffeelocks, which might be 2/8 split, and as such have an arbitrary number of level 5 slots (though they don't know any level 5 spells, they can upcast just like anyone else).


I believe Segev meant Sorlock Master with that "he", not you :)
...also, while nitpicking, your example can't upcast to 5th level slots, because pact magic and regular spellcasting don't stack.

Indeed. I was specifically referencing Sorlock Master's description of why his 5/5 build is so outrageously overpowered that nobody should do it.

And ARkhios is right; you'd need Sorcerer 9 to get 5th level spell slots. And when running any coffeelock strategy, remember that you can't have more sorcery points than your --

--huh. Looking at Sorcerer in the SRD, I don't see it actually say you can't create a 5th level slot at 7th Sorcerer level with all 7 of your SP. Iiiinteresting.

That said, "unlimited" 5th level spell slots is a major stretch. Warlock 2 gives you 2 1st level spells per short rest, so a total of 2 SP per short rest. It takes 4 short rests for you to get enough SP to refill yourself after 1 conversion into a 5th level spell slot.

[Nifft]

Indeed. I was specifically referencing Sorlock Master's description of why his 5/5 build is so outrageously overpowered that nobody should do it.

And ARkhios is right; you'd need Sorcerer 9 to get 5th level spell slots. And when running any coffeelock strategy, remember that you can't have more sorcery points than your --

--huh. Looking at Sorcerer in the SRD, I don't see it actually say you can't create a 5th level slot at 7th Sorcerer level with all 7 of your SP. Iiiinteresting.

That said, "unlimited" 5th level spell slots is a major stretch. Warlock 2 gives you 2 1st level spells per short rest, so a total of 2 SP per short rest. It takes 4 short rests for you to get enough SP to refill yourself after 1 conversion into a 5th level spell slot.

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).


Anyway, it looks like you realized that hidden upside of the Sorlock -- that you can combo spell points into slots higher than you could normally cast. Upcasting above your level is fairly niche if you are a vanilla Sorcerer, since you usually don't want to expend all of your Sorcery Points at once, and since Metamagic like Twin is usually better than upcasting anyway.

A coffeelock with sufficient Sorcery points can create & cache arbitrary level 5 slots, even when completing a long rest would not grant any level 5 slots.

That's a thing which should not be allowed.

[Arkhios]

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).


Anyway, it looks like you realized that hidden upside of the Sorlock -- that you can combo spell points into slots higher than you could normally cast. Upcasting above your level is fairly niche if you are a vanilla Sorcerer, since you usually don't want to expend all of your Sorcery Points at once, and since Metamagic like Twin is usually better than upcasting anyway.

A coffeelock with sufficient Sorcery points can create & cache arbitrary level 5 slots, even when completing a long rest would not grant any level 5 slots.

That's a thing which should not be allowed.

I mean, these things are certainly great on paper, but there's still the factor of short rests and whether or not you get any (if at all) of them. While it's up to the players to choose to take a short rest, the DM always has the final say if you can take a "nap".

23 short rests per day is a daydream.

[Willie the Duck]

That's a thing which should not be allowed.

And usually isn't (in my experience), regardless of how overpowered (if overpowered at all, rather than merely ridiculous and seemingly outside of the intended game-rule framework*).
*although I do not know if the designers have commented on it.

Regardless, this does show, I think rather handily, why sorlock in particular receives more hate than charisma-based multiclass 'builds' do in general which receive more hate than multiclass 'builds' overall, which receives more hate than perceived min-maxing as a general subject (all of which receives hate, and not completely without merit).

[Segev]

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).Yep. If you play your character as an automaton who does nothing but this, it works. Most DMs will probably find ways to stop it. Heck, despite it apparently being a rare problem, I have yet to play in a campaign that has downtime longer than a day or two. And those were really, really rare. So I know, at least, in my experience that trying to play the coffeelock with that expectation would fail miserably. Without gentlemen's agreements or any deliberate foiling of it by the DM.


Anyway, it looks like you realized that hidden upside of the Sorlock -- that you can combo spell points into slots higher than you could normally cast. Upcasting above your level is fairly niche if you are a vanilla Sorcerer, since you usually don't want to expend all of your Sorcery Points at once, and since Metamagic like Twin is usually better than upcasting anyway.

A coffeelock with sufficient Sorcery points can create & cache arbitrary level 5 slots, even when completing a long rest would not grant any level 5 slots.

That's a thing which should not be allowed.
The sorcerer can do it, too, and your Sorcerer 7/Warlock 2 is already a 9th level character. So having 5th level slots is not out of line. Even with your cheesy (but rules-legal) tactic of 23 short rests per day, that's 2 5th level slots every 7 hours, or 7 5th level slots in 24 short rests (and three short rests from your next one). Impressive, but STILL not game-breaking. Especially since you're upcasting into them, rather than actually using 5th level spells.

Don't get me wrong: it's potent. The reliability factor and stamina is great. But when you start spamming those, you're going to need downtime again to recover. And you HAVE to spam them to keep up with the straight Warlock 9 or Sorcerer 9. Meanwhile, if anything you want to do takes Concentration, you're no better off than the straight Warlock or Sorcerer. You still can't Concentrate on more than one spell at a time.

So, yes. With a particular build at 9th level, and a game that gives you plenty of downtime, and no downtime activities other than serial short resting, you can be prepared on any given adventure day to spam 5th level spell slots like they're free. But they're not really free. And if you want to have a life outside of loafing about and adventuring, you're not going to be building them up that efficiently. And even then, only with significant downtime available to you.

I just don't see it as a problem, when you're giving up on at least one spell level of spells.

[Sorlock Master]

He's also ignoring what a 10th level Sorcerer or Warlock could do, which is what he's competing against. 5th level spell access is a pretty big advantage over tons of freedom to spam third level spells. And the Sorcerer is getting much more oomph out of those fireballs (or other element-of-choice spell) based on his 6th level class feature. The 10th level Warlock is not-quite spamming 5th level spells every combat, almost as much as the 5/5 Sorlock is spamming 3rds.

The 5/5 Sorlock's not awful; that kind of stamina makes for a fun and reliable build. But the 10th level characters going straight one or the other are doing more impressive things, if not always as often.

A 10th level Sorcerer also has much lower AC and HP, and cant wreck **** in CC the way I could.

Keep in mind we had a 10th level fighter and I did simular damage as him in melee had as many attacks (I usually twinned Hate to put it on the two of us), and same AC.

I basically opperated as a 10th level fighter and a 5th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Warlock.

Keep in mind that is a decent Combo, not even a stupid one. The OP is effectively a Warlock/Paladin...Cleric/Sorcerer. But only has to level up 2 classes.

So Quickened Guiding Bolts followed up by GWM strikes are very much a thing. Never sleeping, and just casting Greater Restoration on yourself for 8 hours strait means literal infinite 5th level spells. Elemental Weapon means your always doing vulnerable damage. Plus Smites also at 5th level. The potential for abuse is astronomical.

[Nifft]

the DM always has the final say if you can take a "nap". My advice is that DMs should indeed say "no" to this.

Never allow a character to have more spell slots than she'd have upon completing a long rest. Do allow sorcery points to recover spell slots, or to immediately cast a spell (when creating a slot higher than you normally have), but never allow those to accumulate beyond normal daily limits.


Regardless, this does show, I think rather handily, why sorlock in particular receives more hate than charisma-based multiclass 'builds' do in general which receive more hate than multiclass 'builds' overall, which receives more hate than perceived min-maxing as a general subject (all of which receives hate, and not completely without merit). Exactly. It's a blatant abuse of meta-game elements to turn ephemeral short-rest resources into sticky long-term resources, to accumulate resources above the normal limit, and turns downtime (which was merely narrative window-dressing before) into a strategic resource.


Yep. If you play your character as an automaton who does nothing but this, it works. Nope. You can play a Coffeelock who only spends 12 hours out of every day on short-rest abuse, and the other 12 on normal stuff -- aside from eating, of course, since that can happen during the 12 hours of short-rest abuse.

23 short rests per day of downtime is an upper limit, not a requirement.



The sorcerer can do it, too You mean the over-level upcast thing?

As I said, that eats up all of a regular Sorcerer's sorcery points, which is usually not as powerful as using those points for Metamagic.

Normally, a Sorcerer has limited sorcery points which only replenish on a long rest -- and those long rests are exactly what prevents the accumulation of spell-slots.

So, the Sorcerer can technically do part of it, but not the broken part, and not without cost. The broken part requires two things that the Warlock brings: short rest spell slots, and the ability to skip sleep without penalty.

[Segev]

A 10th level Sorcerer also has much lower AC and HP, and cant wreck **** in CC the way I could.

Keep in mind we had a 10th level fighter and I did simular damage as him in melee had as many attacks (I usually twinned Hate to put it on the two of us), and same AC.

I basically opperated as a 10th level fighter and a 5th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Warlock.

Keep in mind that is a decent Combo, not even a stupid one. The OP is effectively a Warlock/Paladin...Cleric/Sorcerer. But only has to level up 2 classes.

So Quickened Guiding Bolts followed up by GWM strikes are very much a thing. Never sleeping, and just casting Greater Restoration on yourself for 8 hours strait means literal infinite 5th level spells. Elemental Weapon means your always doing vulnerable damage. Plus Smites also at 5th level. The potential for abuse is astronomical.This may be my years of 3e showing, but...

Congrats. You've managed to take a caster and make it keep up with a martial. :smallsigh:

[Arkhios]

A 10th level Sorcerer also has much lower AC and HP, and cant wreck **** in CC the way I could.

Keep in mind we had a 10th level fighter and I did simular damage as him in melee had as many attacks (I usually twinned Hate to put it on the two of us), and same AC.

I basically opperated as a 10th level fighter and a 5th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Warlock.

Keep in mind that is a decent Combo, not even a stupid one. The OP is effectively a Warlock/Paladin...Cleric/Sorcerer. But only has to level up 2 classes.

So Quickened Guiding Bolts followed up by GWM strikes are very much a thing. Never sleeping, and just casting Greater Restoration on yourself for 8 hours strait means literal infinite 5th level spells. Elemental Weapon means your always doing vulnerable damage. Plus Smites also at 5th level. The potential for abuse is astronomical.

So... You won D&D or what? I'd like to see how long you'd survive if you were pitted against an encounter meant for 4 to 5 characters, and you're alone. I'd reckon not very long. You still need a group, regardless how powerful you think you are.

[MaxWilson]

A coffeelock with sufficient Sorcery points can create & cache arbitrary level 5 slots, even when completing a long rest would not grant any level 5 slots.

That's a thing which should not be allowed.

Hmmm. Interesting. Even more interesting when you consider the case of e.g. a Druid 9/Sorcerer 7/Warlock 2. He has enough sorcery points to create level 5 spells, and he has regular level 5 spell slots, but he doesn't know any level 5 sorcerer spells. Is it or is it not plausible that he could create level 5 spell slots for himself to use with his Druid spells (Conjure Animals V)?

The answer is not obvious, at least to me, either from a game logic perspective or a game balance perspective (to the extent that 5E has "balance" in the first place).


So... You won D&D or what? I'd like to see how long you'd survive if you were pitted against an encounter meant for 4 to 5 characters, and you're alone. I'd reckon not very long. You still need a group, regardless how powerful you think you are.

Depends on the encounter. Against some threats, having more PCs onscreen is just a liability. Consider a Mobile Shadow Monk 9/Rogue 2 against 2 Iron Golems: on paper that's a Deadly x3 fight for four PCs, or a Deadly x16 fight for just the Monk by himself, and yet the Monk has a better shot at victory on his own than a party of Monk + Zealot 11 + Life Cleric 11 + Beastmaster 11 would. The Monk is going to survive either way, but the party of four might take 25-75% casualties whereas the Monk by himself will take approximately 0% casualties.

Obviously I agree that Monk + three other PCs offscreen is better than just monk, but basically I'm talking about increasing your exposure by giving the enemy more soft targets.

[Nifft]

Hmmm. Interesting. Even more interesting when you consider the case of e.g. a Druid 9/Sorcerer 7/Warlock 2. He has enough sorcery points to create level 5 spells, and he has regular level 5 spell slots, but he doesn't know any level 5 sorcerer spells. Is it or is it not plausible that he could create level 5 spell slots for himself to use with his Druid spells (Conjure Animals V)?

The answer is not obvious, at least to me, either from a game logic perspective or a game balance perspective (to the extent that 5E has "balance" in the first place).
Even without the Druid levels, it's entirely possible to cast a lower-level spell using a higher-level slot, so it's quite possible that the Sorcerer's ability to upcast beyond what her slots indicate is intentional and well-supported.

Spells like Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, and Hex are all reasonable candidates for upcasting to 5th level.

[MaxWilson]

Even without the Druid levels, it's entirely possible to cast a lower-level spell using a higher-level slot, so it's quite possible that the Sorcerer's ability to upcast beyond what her slots indicate is intentional and well-supported.

Spells like Animate Dead, Bestow Curse, and Hex are all reasonable candidates for upcasting to 5th level.

True. The question only matters for sorcerers of levels 6-8, because before that you don't have enough sorcery points and after that you already have 5th level spells, but it's still an interesting question.

[Nifft]

True. The question only matters for sorcerers of levels 6-8, because before that you don't have enough sorcery points and after that you already have 5th level spells, but it's still an interesting question.

Honestly I don't find the upcasting to be a problem, not unless you're also stockpiling unlimited spell slots.

Stockpiling is the problem, and that can be done right from Sorc 2 / Warlock 1.

[Citan]

A 10th level Sorcerer also has much lower AC and HP, and cant wreck **** in CC the way I could.

Keep in mind we had a 10th level fighter and I did simular damage as him in melee had as many attacks (I usually twinned Hate to put it on the two of us), and same AC.

I basically opperated as a 10th level fighter and a 5th level Sorcerer and a 5th level Warlock.

Keep in mind that is a decent Combo, not even a stupid one. The OP is effectively a Warlock/Paladin...Cleric/Sorcerer. But only has to level up 2 classes.

So Quickened Guiding Bolts followed up by GWM strikes are very much a thing. Never sleeping, and just casting Greater Restoration on yourself for 8 hours strait means literal infinite 5th level spells. Elemental Weapon means your always doing vulnerable damage. Plus Smites also at 5th level. The potential for abuse is astronomical.
You know, if I had a player such as you that boasts about abusing the system while hiding behind a "I warn you guys this is OP", I'd make the world react quickly enough to that "overpoweredness": because someone THAT powerful is bound to let traces of his passage.

So in a few weeks of displaying your outrageous power, you may have several assassins coming for you (good luck, with no Alert feat, nor Expertise in Perception nor Stealth), or maybe people trying to block you from casting (Blindness IS a thing too, you know? As Silence, or Hold Person)...
But the true realization of how overpowered your character is NOT would be when a monster, or caster, would make you turn against your friends with any kind of dominate effect: nothing is more dangerous than a double-edged sword: and any guy that can vomit hordes of damage but cannot prevent himself to be controlled is such a concept. :)

Other than that, you know, for any period of time to qualify as short rest, you have to actually do something strenuous in-between each one.
Just one minute of activity, even intense, won't cut it, at least in my games, except if it's like you're trying to succeed on a DC 25 check (that ought to take real effort). But otherwise? Just running one minute is something even an untrained IRL person can do, mostly. Why would you expect it to be considered strenuous to someone that is trained for fights?
So obviously just casting spells -which is something equally mundane for a caster- or doing exercizes/chores won't either.

For what you described in your earlier post, since all you do is making a few magic conversions (not taking even more than one minute) I would argue you didn't have any activity warranting that another hour would qualify as a short rest. In other words, you'd still be prolongating that long rest for nothing.

Of course, I don't pretend I'd be strictly following the RAW here (no real idea on whether your illustration abides to RAW), just saying that it wouln't work at my table, for the worst or best.

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).

Confer above. You can't say "I take consecutive short rests" because it has no meaning. And every continuous period of rest that is less than a long rest but more than one hour will count as a single short rest. And it's ultimately up to the DM to decide from what threshold you finished a continuous period of rest by entering an activity that seems to DM's eyes strenuous enough to be outside the "authorized non-strenuous activities".

Good luck on justifying your "23 short rests." At the best of the best, you could probably expect to milk out somewhere around 12 short rests (which is game-breaking enough already).

I mean, a kind DM would probably give it away to you one or two times just for the pleasure of seeing one guy completely wreck one adventuring day... But telling you beforehand this is just for fun. If you tried to make it an habit, I'm sure most DMs would quickly stop it right in tracks.

[Nifft]

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).


Confer above. You can't say "I take consecutive short rests" because it has no meaning. Did someone say that? Certainly wasn't me, though.


And every continuous period of rest that is less than a long rest but more than one hour will count as a single short rest. And it's ultimately up to the DM to decide from what threshold you finished a continuous period of rest by entering an activity that seems to DM's eyes strenuous enough to be outside the "authorized non-strenuous activities". Yes, that's why you get 23 of them per 24 hours. That's exactly and specifically why, and I said that in the text you quoted.


Good luck on justifying your "23 short rests." At the best of the best, you could probably expect to milk out somewhere around 12 short rests (which is game-breaking enough already). Actually, you can expect zero.

I just say no to that tactic.

[Citan]

Did someone say that? Certainly wasn't me, though.

Yes, that's why you get 23 of them per 24 hours. That's exactly and specifically why, and I said that in the text you quoted.

Actually, you can expect zero.

I just say no to that tactic.
I'm sorry but you're plain contradicting yourself here.

You just say, quoted (again),

Sure, but if you literally never sleep then you can get 23 short rests per day of downtime (assuming you need to perform a minute or two some non-rest activity after every hour of short resting to ensure you don't accidentally take a long rest).
The fact that you don't allow it yourself is irrelevant. The way you write it, you put it like it's something that would work by RAW.

Hence, you cannot say you agree with me who is telling something else entirely, starting with "a single minute or two will *never* cut it". ^^
(And I'm too tired to read PHB back to try an argument about RAW forbidding it, but I'm pretty sure that the 23 short rests would at least not be possible per RAI. ;)).

[Boci]

You know, if I had a player such as you that boasts about abusing the system while hiding behind a "I warn you guys this is OP", I'd make the world react quickly enough to that "overpoweredness": because someone THAT powerful is bound to let traces of his passage.

So in a few weeks of displaying your outrageous power, you may have several assassins coming for you (good luck, with no Alert feat, nor Expertise in Perception nor Stealth), or maybe people trying to block you from casting (Blindness IS a thing too, you know? As Silence, or Hold Person)...
But the true realization of how overpowered your character is NOT would be when a monster, or caster, would make you turn against your friends with any kind of dominate effect: nothing is more dangerous than a double-edged sword: and any guy that can vomit hordes of damage but cannot prevent himself to be controlled is such a concept. :)

Not this again. Not only is this terrible because it solves an OOC problem IC, which is a recipe for making it all worse, it also doesn't make any sense. NPCs don't know, or care, that this sorlock is level 10. Is he stronger than a 14th level wizard? Probably not, so why aren't those assassins following the wizard instead? THe difference between level 10 and 14 matters to the DM, not the NPCs who would be sending the assassins.

[Nifft]

The fact that you don't allow it yourself is irrelevant. The way you write it, you put it like it's something that would work by RAW. That's the claim which generates the hate that is the topic of this thread.

Just in case it's unclear, what's happening here is that I'm explaining a position with which I do not agree.


Hence, you cannot say you agree with me who is telling something else entirely, starting with "a single minute or two will *never* cut it". ^^ Well, I don't agree with the thing that I said I don't agree with. You can agree with me or not, that's up to you.

If you want me to agree (or disagree) with you, you'll need a more coherent position on the thread's topic.

[Mercurias]

I feel like there are uses for a Sorlock beyond the coffeelock archetype.

I'm far and beyond the type who picks a character for concept and then sees if it can be viable. For me, I really like the idea of mixing Patrons and Sorcerous Origins.

A single level Sorcerer dip for a Warlock would be pretty amazing if you're working with Repelling Blast. The Curse of the Sea trait adds fifteen feet to any spell with a movement effect, and with Repelling Blast adding a 10 foot movement away from you, that goes to 25 feet. If those compound per shot, and at level 17 you get four eldritch blasts per round, a house ruling could end up with you being able to propel an enemy away from you by a whopping hundred feet per turn.

[Citan]

Not this again. Not only is this terrible because it solves an OOC problem IC, which is a recipe for making it all worse, it also doesn't make any sense. NPCs don't know, or care, that this sorlock is level 10. Is he stronger than a 14th level wizard? Probably not, so why aren't those assassins following the wizard instead? THe difference between level 10 and 14 matters to the DM, not the NPCs who would be sending the assassins.
You're perfectly right, NPCs don't know that "sorlock is level 10". The concept itself is foreign to them. For that same reason they cannot know if he's more powerful than a lvl 14 Wizard. The notion of class and multiclass does not really exist, it's only the notion of how powerful magic someone uses.

What they witness though is the existence of someone that is seemingly powerful enough to blow many mid/high level spells in a single day (very possibly as many or more than a very high level caster known around) and being very open about it. THAT is largely enough to make that character prime target, either as a potential enemy to be removed or as an ally to be made.

To say otherwise, if you have a Sorlock that constantly trivializes encounters but does not kill every witness of it every time, no matter that the party he's in also has a higher caster, you'll be the one considered most dangerous. Logically. Because you were the one displaying your power the most.

You yourself consider that your character trumps a 10th level caster and a 10th level martial combined. That can "vomit fireballs all over the place".

Quick reminder of your words...

"I had an assumed 22 AC (Shield spell+DEX+mage armor+Haste) because I usually had a ****ing bagagillion 1st level spell slots, plus enough 3rd level spell slots to cast haste in every encounter. Here is how I would do it."
"The idea that a 10th level charcter can have 22 AC, 100ish HP, get 3 attacks, and have enough spell slots to vomit fireballs all over the place seems pretty OP already."
"Keep in mind we had a 10th level fighter and I did simular damage as him in melee had as many attacks (I usually twinned Hate to put it on the two of us), and same AC."

How would that such a character NOT be the prime target? XD

Also, I don't talk about it as a way to solve an OOC problem IC. Obviously with such a player I'll say beforehand what will happen if he continues. It's not punishing him, it's just making the world react to its existence.
Exactly like a murder-hobo party will eventually get harassed by city guards or potentially assassins.

You can't expect to make big things without impact.

Works both ways though: like a party that manages to put up a more or less peaceful end to a long war would get discounted prices in shops and free housing in many places. Or a party that was tasked to kill an infamous orc controlling a region but decides to spare him on conditions could be left alone from his clan, maybe even getting its help in a future big fight.

If you want me to agree (or disagree) with you, you'll need a more coherent position on the thread's topic.
Mine is easy: 23 short rests is never possible, because you need a really strenuous activity to generate the situation opening the possibility of a short rest.
And except for a life-or-death situation, nothing should qualify if it's only a few minutes total.

It's probably not easy, or even possible, to present it as RAW though because RAW only speaks about the process of resting itself and of what could break the ongoing process, but never of the "state" that represents the starting point of the process.
In fact there is no "rested state vs tired state" per RAW, but it's really the notion that could prevent metagaming imo.

But since RAW is imo intrinsically blurry in defining authorized activities, I guess it was supposed to fall into each DM's authority in the first place. :)

[Vorpalchicken]

I liken short rests to meal breaks in my games.

So if the sorlock wants 12 or 20 meals a day, he or she is going to gain considerable weight. Lower speed. Con checks to Dash. Certain social challenges. Armor suddenly not fitting. Being inconvenienced by sweat.

Power has a price.

[Boci]

To say otherwise, if you have a Sorlock that constantly trivializes encounters but does not kill every witness of it every time, no matter that the party he's in also has a higher caster, you'll be the one considered most dangerous. Logically. Because you were the one displaying your power the most.

Of the party? Sure. That was likely going to happen. But if someone is going to send assassins after the party, they should have been doing it anyway. They very likely will target a sorlock, casters in the party are often prime targets. But that is just for assassins who were already going to be sent after the party. If the sorlock is enough to have an assassin being sent who wasn't before, why isn't the assassin instead being sent after the NPC 14th level wizard, who is way more powerful.


Quick reminder of your words...


How would that such a character NOT be the prime target? XD

Not my words, a completly different poster's words. And a mage, a CR 6 NPC, can cast 7 fireballs per day if they want to.

[Arkhios]

why isn't the assassin instead being sent after the NPC 14th level wizard, who is way more powerful.


Because, as presented earlier, the assassins have no way of knowing their levels, or which one is actually more powerful, mechanically. DM may know it and players may know it, but making decisions based on DM/player knowledge is metagaming, which is generally frowned upon.

The warlock is likely more open about his power if he keeps up a demeanor of being seemingly unsurpassed in power and capable of wiping hordes of enemies "without breaking a sweat" so to speak.

That's more likely to draw attention than the wizard who could blast a whole lot more than the warlock – if he wanted to – but chooses not to.

[Boci]

Because, as presented earlier, the assassins have no way of knowing their levels, or which one is actually more powerful, mechanically. DM may know it and players may know it, but making decisions based on DM/player knowledge is metagaming, which is generally frowned upon.

What? No, you're confused. Mechanical power can totally be known in game, its observable. Its level that cannot. Yes, wizards may be more reserved with their power, but that's a general rule, not a universally applied. Are you telling me in the whole realm with this sorlock, there's no flashy 14th level wizards, who is clearly more powerful than they are?

Bascially, that this is getting at: Don't send assassins after 10th level PCs on the sole reason that one of them is powerful and flashy, because in a properly fleshed out world, there will be a more powerful and more flashy NPC. (Also, OOC problem, IC solution).

[Arkhios]

What? No, you're confused. Mechanical power can totally be known in game, its observable.

No I'm not. By mechanical power I mean how many dice a player rolls or how high a DC enemies must save against. In-Character, *no one* can see that kind stuff. Not NPC's, nor PC's.

Or do you really think that creatures run around with health bars and power bars floating above their heads? Or that when dealt or healed damage a numerical value is seen scrolling up or down in-character?

[Boci]

No I'm not. By mechanical power I mean how many dice a player rolls or how high a DC enemies must save against. In-Character, *no one* can see that kind stuff. Not NPC's, nor PC's.

Or do you really think that creatures run around with health bars and power bars floating above their heads? Or that when dealt or healed damage a numerical value is seen scrolling up or down in-character?

So by "mechanical power" you mean "very precise details of mechanical power". You probably should have specified that. Mechanical power is still observable in game, even if the precise details are not. One person can cast 3rd level spells and is flashy about it. Another guy can cast 7th level spells and is flashy about it. Which one is this hypothetical, shadowy figure going to send assassins after for being too powerful?

[Citan]

Of the party? Sure. That was likely going to happen. But if someone is going to send assassins after the party, they should have been doing it anyway. They very likely will target a sorlock, casters in the party are often prime targets. But that is just for assassins who were already going to be sent after the party. If the sorlock is enough to have an assassin being sent who wasn't before, why isn't the assassin instead being sent after the NPC 14th level wizard, who is way more powerful.



Not my words, a completly different poster's words. And a mage, a CR 6 NPC, can cast 7 fireballs per day if they want to.
My bad about confusing another poster's post and you. ;)

My point still stands though, and you actually stress it.
If word is running about one character that cast somewhere around 8-10 Fireballs in any given day and a bootload of Shield to defend himself, even supposing as you say that people have a way to assess casters's "level", on what grounds would an external viewer see that character as anything else than a 14th level caster, or even above?

Unless you suppose that the NPC...
1) Is a sufficiently knowledgeable caster himself to identify magic.
2) Witnessed first-hand all the PC's cast.
3) And assessed accurately each cast's level...
4) Knows about all the various kind of magic, including innate magic (Sorcerer) and upper beings (Warlock).
5) Knows about the implications of a "multiclass"...

The only fact he can relate about is: "this (PC) character can cast several handful of Fireball any day and dishes out Shield like it's a natural thing".
Who can do this?
A level 10 Wizard could cast 3+3+2+1 by using all slots of 3+ and Arcane Recovery, and still have 4+3 slots for Shield by using 1st and 2nd level slots.
So yeah, technically an NPC could say to himself "welp, it's just a brainless Wizard -quite an oxymore-".
Is that "credible"? I don't think so. Of course it's all about personal view here, but imo the more credible explanation to give would be "he's high enough levels that he can unleash a whole lot of Fireball and Shield just by using Arcane Recovery and a bit of upcast, but he's obviously keeping steam available for higher spells". Because that's what any decent caster would do (imo).
Basing reasoning on this stance, the NPC would assess PC to be either 14th level or maybe even higher (18th level free Shield could explain the seemingly unlimited use of it. 20th level short-rest Fireball + 10 "level slots" of Arcane Recovery could explain how the character launches so many Fireballs per day).

Unless he bets on PC being a Sorcerer that blew all slots to convert as 1st and 3th level spells for reasons (being charismatic =/= being smart) but then, considering you convert at a loss, he couldn't sport both high number of Fireball AND high number of Shields without being at least level 13/14...
Because a level 10 Sorcerer would have basic 4*1st and 3*3rd level, he could convert all other slots into 3*2+3*4+2*5=28 SP to convert into 5 more Fireballs and 3 Shield so he would total 8 Fireball and 7 Shield for the day.

See what I mean?
Even worse when you consider all the prerequisites I listed above.
Indeed, a high-level caster *may* have enough knowledge and experience to accurately determine the true threat level of the party's PCs.

But what about a Goblin / Orc or in general any creature that is not very knowledgeable? Between the guy that animate a bunch of objects (the Wizard casting Animate Objects), possibly seeing his spell ended early because of a bad arrow, and the guy that unleash a huge boulder of flames three consecutive times until everyone is crispy while laughing as arrows and blades alike bounce off him, who do you think will make the biggest impression?

[Boci]

A level 10 Wizard

Why compare a 10th level sorlock to a 10th level wizard. Why not to a 14th level wizard? NPCs don't know about level, they see only the in game capabilities of each. If you are compating a 10th level sorlock to a 10th level wizard because they are in the same party, it seems strange that the sorlock is the reason assassins are sent. Would the party otherwise be permitted to continue what they were doing without assassins?

[Citan]

Why compare a 10th level sorlock to a 10th level wizard. Why not to a 14th level wizard? NPCs don't know about level, they see only the in game capabilities of each. If you are compating a 10th level sorlock to a 10th level wizard because they are in the same party, it seems strange that the sorlock is the reason assassins are sent. Would the party otherwise be permitted to continue what they were doing without assassins?
Funny how you take my own argument to try and turn it against me. XD

I just assume that the whole party is of same level because that is usually the case. But if you prefer, let's say it's a 14th level Wizard.

It does not change anything.
Only a caster of high enough level may have a chance of determining the biggest threat to him.
For most creatures, the most immediate, flashy threat is the biggest one.

So if you have a 14th level Wizard casting Reverse Gravity / Forcecage and the Sorlock casting consecutive Fireballs, for most creatures what do you think the biggest threat to their health will be? :)
And when as a result the Sorlock crushed a whole group of creatures by spamming his favorite spell while the Wizard locked down one opponent (as powerful as it may be), for non-casters witnesses, who do you think the biggest threat is?
The one that can emprison you for one minute or make you hang under ceiling, or the one that can roast you "at-will"?

--
This discussion is of course completely pointless when talking about campaigns in which one, two at most encounters are the most common occurence. Because in those situations a Wizard could probably cast a different spell each turn so you won't see any difference.
In which case, sure, I don't see why Sorlock would get any special interest.

This discussion has meaning when you have campaigns with several encounters of varying magnitude, which end as either Wizard being conservative "in case of" or running out of big spells for the third or fourth while the Sorlock is always using his highest level spells every encounter with a smile. ^^

And this discussion loses meaning imo at the highest levels, because 9th level spells do clear any ambiguity about who is the stronger caster between the one with those and the one without. :)

[Boci]

So if you have a 14th level Wizard casting Reverse Gravity / Forcecage and the Sorlock casting consecutive Fireballs, for most creatures what do you think the biggest threat to their health will be? :)
And when as a result the Sorlock crushed a whole group of creatures by spamming his favorite spell while the Wizard locked down one opponent (as powerful as it may be), for non-casters witnesses, who do you think the biggest threat is?
The one that can emprison you for one minute or make you hang under ceiling, or the one that can roast you "at-will"?

Why would the 14th level wizard cast forcecage against enemies where fireballs reliable kills them? They'd likely cast fireball themselves, which they can spam every bit as much as the sorloc can for any one encounter.

If the wizard is casting forcecage, that probably because the threat is big enough to justify casting a spell that incapacitates them for one minute rather than going pure damage. And onlookers will likely pick up on the force cage more than the fireballs in that situation.

This elaborate exchange about game mechanics and how obersavle they are in game really isn't neccissary. Don't use assassins sent after PCs as a respons to a problematic build (which in the hypothetical scenatio you would have needed to aprove). Its as simple as that.

[Snails]

The Sorlock is a clever way of enhancing a problematic issue of Warlock design: How consistently do the PCs get to Short Rest?

I am not a 5e optimizing expert, but I do not see how the Sorlock is better or even as good as other options for the first 2-3 encounters in the day. At that point, if the Sorlock gets to have all the Short Rests he likes, the combo starts looking very strong.

While I think that DMs should not be stingy about Short Rests on average, I think it is a good thing for players to face uncertainty about how many encounters they will need to get through before there is a convenient moment for the next Short Rest.

The broader question of the pace of Short Rest and how they affect playability of particular classes is not unique to the Warlock, but it is more extreme here than in other cases.

[MaxWilson]

The Sorlock is a clever way of enhancing a problematic issue of Warlock design: How consistently do the PCs get to Short Rest?

I am not a 5e optimizing expert, but I do not see how the Sorlock is better or even as good as other options for the first 2-3 encounters in the day. At that point, if the Sorlock gets to have all the Short Rests he likes, the combo starts looking very strong.

While I think that DMs should not be stingy about Short Rests on average, I think it is a good thing for players to face uncertainty about how many encounters they will need to get through before there is a convenient moment for the next Short Rest.

The broader question of the pace of Short Rest and how they affect playability of particular classes is not unique to the Warlock, but it is more extreme here than in other cases.

PCs are meant to be able to influence how often they can feasibly take short breaks from action (a.k.a. "short rests"). Otherwise, spells like Rope Trick wouldn't exist.

This doesn't mean that a PC will or should be able to short rest "as much as they like", especially in the middle of a time-sensitive action sequence like "you have broken into the compound to steal the MacGuffin, and the compound defenses are beginning to mobilize while you search." But sorlocks do have a much easier time with pacing than pure warlocks do, because they can do their compound short-resting before the time-sensitive sequence occurs, due to stockpiling. I've seen never them do multiple days' worth of stockpiling though. That's overkill unless you're planning to do something completely crazy like fight twenty gladiatorial death-matches in succession, which doesn't happen. Or hasn't so far, anyway, that I have seen.

Think of it this way: sorlock stockpiling of spell slots is a way of ensuring that downtime, including resting while you're already at or near full, is not "wasted". In this sense it's similar to Goodberry.

[Tetrasodium]

I like multiclassing and think a lot of cool Builds can be made that way, but charisma is overly good in 5e & xge only made that worse by letting the face character be a single stat dependant character who adds that stat to damned near anything. Want to cast arcane spells? Int.. Or charisma. Want to cast divine spells? Wis... Or charisma. Want to cast the best damage cantrip in the game? Charisma or.. Charisma. Want to hit things with a melee weapon? Strength(which helps with nothing really, Dex (which also bumps ac, or charisma... Which can be added to how many things as a scorlockadin?

The problem is exacerbated by how few of the caster feats are as useful to other types of casters that are not charisma based.

[Galactkaktus]

So if you don't take long rests it becomes a problem otherwise it's fine? A fight generally don't last for too many rounds so i don't see why it whould be such a big problem since without fighters action surge you are still limited to 1 spell of 1st or higher per turn(reactions being the exception if you didn't cast a spell as a bonus action). That being said i don't like the cofeelock thing since it just seems like an abuse of the game mechanics.

[Tetrasodium]

So if you don't take long rests it becomes a problem otherwise it's fine? A fight generally don't last for too many rounds so i don't see why it whould be such a big problem since without fighters action surge you are still limited to 1 spell of 1st or higher per turn(reactions being the exception if you didn't cast a spell as a bonus action). That being said i don't like the cofeelock thing since it just seems like an abuse of the game mechanics.
Depends... I had a group with like 4 scorlocks at one point pre xge & it was maddening because every fight was alphastrike/manadump>rest. I wound up needing to declare that short rest was 8hours and long rest a week becii was sick of it.
It does not help their unpopularity given how often ime that those scorlockadins conveniently misunderstand that warlock does not multiclass spell slot advancement with other casters using the multiclassing table or that the sorcerer spell slots don't magically all become level whatever warlock spell slots.

Casters are usually pretty on the ball with knowing the rules and his their class/spells work... Scorlocks seem to break that too often to be reasonable. I'm tired of telling scorlocks that even though cantrips are based on character level, the bonus spells added from sorcerer/warlock/paladin are based on class level to boot
Ta k on what they s basically perm glibnessin the form of making every other SAD class look like some of the most heavily multi attribute dependent MAD clsssed

[Asmotherion]

Why should you care? It's a great multiclass option, and you contribute to the team, instead of dragging them to save you. Unless there was some discussion pre-session against optimisation, you'll be a great asset to the team, and they should be thankful for it.

Some people might get jealous or feel you're stealing their spotlight... that's part the job of your DM to handle (giving everyone a chance to shine), and part theirs, to optimise a bit on latter levels, if they want to be better at stuff.

If on the other hand you can't handle the social presure of people feeling bitter towards you because you're better at stuff, Sorlock is probably not for you. It's cool. Just play a Regular Warlock or Sorcerer, and you'll be fine. Neither is terribly Optimised by themselves, so you won't have to handle people's opinons on stuff. Being a Sorlock needs real life Charisma too, not only on your Character Sheet :P

[Willie the Duck]

Why should you care? It's a great multiclass option, and you contribute to the team, instead of dragging them to save you. Unless there was some discussion pre-session against optimisation, you'll be a great asset to the team, and they should be thankful for it.

Some people might get jealous or feel you're stealing their spotlight... that's part the job of your DM to handle (giving everyone a chance to shine), and part theirs, to optimise a bit on latter levels, if they want to be better at stuff.

I'm pretty sure that jealous is the near opposite of what happens. Annoyed and disgusted it the more likely outcome. I don't know what editions you have played, but if you are familiar with 3e, would people be jealous if you played a twinked-out CoDzilla build? It is the same with Coffeelock Sorlock -- there is a reason why 'it's so much more balanced than _____' has been one of the selling points of 5e -- people decided that this wasn't actually fun to deal with.

[Asmotherion]

I'm pretty sure that jealous is the near opposite of what happens. Annoyed and disgusted it the more likely outcome. I don't know what editions you have played, but if you are familiar with 3e, would people be jealous if you played a twinked-out CoDzilla build? It is the same with Coffeelock Sorlock -- there is a reason why 'it's so much more balanced than _____' has been one of the selling points of 5e -- people decided that this wasn't actually fun to deal with.

Never played actual 3e, but I have played a lot of 3.5e

CoDzilla, Hellfire/Chameleon/Warlock/Binders, Sorcerer/Paladins, Hexblades with Maneuver Mastery, Dread Necromancers with the Lich Template and GodWizards... a lot of builds have passed from our table, and we never had any problem, because we actually love optimisation, and seeing the high end of what the game has to offer.

It's a matter of perspective really. You either get your group to optimise with you, or have them accept that you yourself like your character optimised because you like to explore the options you can come up with to resolve a situation. That's why I always play casters too, because spells give me more and broader options.

It's not about having an easy mode. I disagree with that perspective. The Challenge is raised according to the party (at least I as a DM do so, and our DM does so as well). It's about designing your level of effectivness to what you want it to be, limited by the rules (level etc). Some people do not want to play optimised characters for some reason, and that's also fine.

There is a subconsious reason behind the choices we make. One may chose to play an optimised concept to get "easy mode", and someone else might want a sub optimal concept for "hard mode". On the other hand, you may chose an optimised character, because you know you'll be getting more harships because of it, wile an other may chose a sub-par character to avoid getting too much harships, and get "easy mode" that way.

In the end, if you know what you sign up for, it's cool. But I don't think there's really an easy mode in D&D, unless your DM makes it that way.

PS: Now, the whole coffeelock thingy. I may sound cheessy, but it's DM Permission stuff. Wile Sorlock is a great multiclass to have either way (Quicken Eldritch Blast just to mention one thing), I don't think coffeelocking is something that happens by default rules, without a DM clearification.

[Willie the Duck]

You are right, it is a perspective thing. The number one thing being everyone being on the same page about what the goals of the gaming experience. But again, in this situation where you have a coffeelock in 5e or CoDzilla or the like in 3.5, and presumably other people were playing something less optimized (else they definitely wouldn't be jealous) were people jealous of our build, or annoyed?

[Tetrasodium]

Never played actual 3e, but I have played a lot of 3.5e

CoDzilla, Hellfire/Chameleon/Warlock/Binders, Sorcerer/Paladins, Hexblades with Maneuver Mastery, Dread Necromancers with the Lich Template and GodWizards... a lot of builds have passed from our table, and we never had any problem, because we actually love optimisation, and seeing the high end of what the game has to offer.

It's a matter of perspective really. You either get your group to optimise with you, or have them accept that you yourself like your character optimised because you like to explore the options you can come up with to resolve a situation. That's why I always play casters too, because spells give me more and broader options.

It's not about having an easy mode. I disagree with that perspective. The Challenge is raised according to the party (at least I as a DM do so, and our DM does so as well). It's about designing your level of effectivness to what you want it to be, limited by the rules (level etc). Some people do not want to play optimised characters for some reason, and that's also fine.

There is a subconsious reason behind the choices we make. One may chose to play an optimised concept to get "easy mode", and someone else might want a sub optimal concept for "hard mode". On the other hand, you may chose an optimised character, because you know you'll be getting more harships because of it, wile an other may chose a sub-par character to avoid getting too much harships, and get "easy mode" that way.

In the end, if you know what you sign up for, it's cool. But I don't think there's really an easy mode in D&D, unless your DM makes it that way.

PS: Now, the whole coffeelock thingy. I may sound cheessy, but it's DM Permission stuff. Wile Sorlock is a great multiclass to have either way (Quicken Eldritch Blast just to mention one thing), I don't think coffeelocking is something that happens by default rules, without a DM clearification.

It's not so simple as you make it out to be Stop pretending that scorlock with maxed charisma is some heavy duty optimized build. Both sorcerer's & warlocks can make awesome sorlocks just by jumping ship or taking a dip early on without even trying to plan for it. Nor is it "DM Permission stuff", it literally works with the rules Read As Written.

dark one's blessing: PHB109, cha mod+warlock level temp HP whebever you kill something
Agonizing blast: PHB110, add your charisma modifier to the only cantrip that scales with multiple blasts instead of just extra dice to give it a multiplicative effect as level goes up
Life Drinker: PHB111, add charisma mod as necrotic damage when striking with your pact weapon
Healing Light: XgE 54, gain a pool of d6's equal to warlock level+1, use them to heal creatures within 60 feet & add your charisma mod. This puts lay on hands to shame no questions & arguably at least comes close to doing the same with cleric Channel Divinity:Preserve life if not unquestionably so.
Radiant Soul: XgE55, add your charisma mod to radiant & fire damage spellsto put the tempest cleric's similar thunder/lightning ability to shame Celestial Resiliance: XgE55, gain charisma mod+warlock level in temp hp whenever you finish a long or short rest
Searing Vengence: XgE55, when you need to make a death save, 1/long rest you can decide to regain half your hp & deal 2d8+charisma mod to each creature you choose in 30 feet and those creatures are blinded until the end of the "current turn"(no save). Yes it's a level 14 ability but it puts to shame multiple similar weaker abilities gained by martial classes & granted by other types of caster
Hexblade's curse: XgE55, place a curse on one creature, no save & 30' range. add your proficiency bonus to damage rolls against that creaturem gain the champion's 3rd level improved critical ability against that creature & crit them on a 19 or 20. Gain charisma mod+warlock level in temp hp when anything kills thecursed creature. You can only do that once per long or short rest... but as a level 1 warlock ability you are probably going to be avoiding those short rests instead of begging every fight or two & piling on in agreement with the other scorlockadins in the group.
Hex Warrior: XgE55, use charisma instead of strength or dex to swing melee weapons & gain proficiency in medium armor, shields, martial weapons at level 1. You are limited to being able to use one weapon for this, but can change it at a long rest and if that weapon is your pact weapon... oh wait, you can't lose that like the smelly martial classes investing heavy in dump stats like strength or the near dump stat of dex.
Xloak of flies: XgE56. Deal poison damage equal to your charisma mod to creatures within 5 feet, no save. gain advantage on charisma:intimidate checks, no need for scorlockadin to MC rogue for that when they can just choose it as an invocation. You can only use it once per long or short rest, but with no duration other than "until you're incapacitated or dismiss it" you can probably keep it going till the next long or short rest.
Maddening Hex: XgE57, you can't make this up "u cause a psychic disturbance
around the target cursed by your hex spell or by a warlock feature of yours, such as Hexblade’s Curse or Sign of 111 Omen. When you do so, you deal psychic damage to the cursed target and each creature of your choice that you can see within 5 feet of it. The psychic damage equals your Charisma modifier (minimum of 1 damage). To use this invocation, you must be able to see the cursed target, and it must be within 30 feet of you."
Strength of the grave: XgE51. You get a charisma based version of undead fortitude 1/long rest. When reduced to 0hp, make a charisma save of 5+damage taken. on a success, you drop to 2hp instead but can't use it against a crit or radiant damage .
Wind Soul:XgE53, immune to lightning & thunder, multitarget(3+charisma mod) granting of fly 30' speed for 1hr/long or short restr.
Careful spell: PHB102, Charisma mod determines how many targets you can choose to autosucceed on save against your aoe spells
Dragon Ancestor: PHB102 Double the proficiency bonus on charisma checks when interacting with dragons
Elemental affinity: PHB102, add charisma mod of damage to spells that deal spells matching the draconic ancestor you choose. Unlike the cleric's powerful cantrip & similar wizard abilities evokers & such get, this is not limited to sorcerer spells.
Conveniently on those last 2 you also have +1 ac already from that first level dip in dragonblood sorcerer.
Bewtween the various warlock & sorcerer archtypes this grants access to nearly every arcane spell, many of the divine ones, plus the warlock only spells like armor of hadar/agathys. Don't forget that things like spell sniper feat to ignore half & 3/4 cover with your ranged spell attack spells & souble range on those spells grant you a cantrip of that type, but it uses the stat of the class that gets it. Wis based classes don't have even one of those cantrips. A wizard doesn't really need it. Conveniently a sorcerer or warlock has the charisma they need to be effective with the free eldritch blast or any of the ranged spell attack sorcerer cantrips. This feat has 3 benefits & one of those is effectively useless if you are not a charisma based caster

The problem is not that charisma can do all those things, the problem is that charisma can do damned near everything and gain the scorlock many of the abilities granted to other classes. People who are not running charisma builds can gain some neat stuff from multiclassing, if they meet the MAD requirements & to much less dramatic impact compared to what the scorlockadin can gain.

In 3.5 there were certain stupid builds you could make yes, but those were not all based around a single stat because strength, dex, int, wis, and charisma builds had post xge 5e style charisma build level optimization options available to them without even getting into the crazy CharOp combos. Nothing for any other stat compares to charisma for the synergy charisma builds have when it comes to SAD multiclassing.

[Asmotherion]

You are right, it is a perspective thing. The number one thing being everyone being on the same page about what the goals of the gaming experience. But again, in this situation where you have a coffeelock in 5e or CoDzilla or the like in 3.5, and presumably other people were playing something less optimized (else they definitely wouldn't be jealous) were people jealous of our build, or annoyed?

In my personal experiance:

Initially yes, until we worked through it, either in-game, through RP, or, if the issue was carrying over to passive-agressiveness, out-of game. In the end, it took me no more than about half an hour to resolve the issue whenever it occured, and it has lead me to some amazing "hero-like" characters I have enjoyed a lot, and lasting friendships even with the people who initially had an issue.

I'd like to hear other experiances, or how they might be different for feedback purposes. However, I believe it's all about adapting (your RP/social skills) to the situation.

[lperkins2]

I have not seen one in play, but coffeelocks strike me as something that sounds great on paper, but might fall apart in real play as you run into situations where you aren't able to get the requisite number of spammed short rests between instances of needing to cast your spells.

And, even if so, it plays like a Warlock who's using spells as invocations, since he's undercutting his pact features and his invocation count for sorcerer spells.

In the end, it just lets the coffeelock spam like a sorcerer a few levels behind. Especially if he's burning stored spell slots for SP to fuel metamagic. It doesn't actually help him have more Concentration spells up; at best there, it gives him a little more flexibility to swap them out because he can afford the spell slots.




...
A coffeelock with sufficient Sorcery points can create & cache arbitrary level 5 slots, even when completing a long rest would not grant any level 5 slots.

That's a thing which should not be allowed.



So, I played a coffelock for a while, and this pretty much sums it up. There are a few 'housekeeping' things to note though. First is an issue with Sorcerer by itself, in the PHB. The PHB and the SRD have a disagreement about the longevity of sorcery-point-created spell slots. According to the SRD, they expire at the end of a long rest. The PHB (first printing at least) omits any text saying that they expire. Note that the PHB version would allow any sorcerer to convert their spell slots to sorcery points and back, forever storing the created spell slots. This caused my DM some consternation until I pointed out that the SRD specifies they expire at the end of a long rest, and the lack of similar wording in the PHB seems to be a mistake.

Second, your sorcery points cannot exceed your sorcery point pool size, which strictly limits your metamagic options, and burning spell slots for more sorcery points takes your bonus action, and don't give many points per turn.

Third, you're going to spend a fair number of your low level options on bringing the sleeplessness online. Assuming your DM uses Xanthar's, you need some way to avoid the penalties for not resting. Assuming they don't, you need some way to pass your Con checks to stay awake. The obvious choice for this is the Aspect of the Moon, which will consume one of your two Invocations. Also note that your DM may apply the rules for 'going without sleep' as 'going without a long rest', at which point you're just going to have to have a way to pass the save. If you fail the save, you could burn 100g a pop on greater restoration, but that's spendy. The best long-term bet is to temporarily gain legendary resistance, and choose to auto-pass the save. Unfortunately, polymorph only lets you turn into a beast, and I can't find a beast with legendary resistance, so that means Shapechange, which is level 9. It doesn't consume it's material component though, but you'll need a party member to assist, and a ring of spell storing, and to be level 17. The other possibility is to become a vampire, lich, or demilich, all of which have legendary resistance.

As for creating up to level 5 slots when you cannot get them via long resting, this is again a 'problem' with just straight sorcerers. Specifically, a sorcerer at level 7 has 7 sorcery points, and can spend them all to make a single level 5 slot, 2 levels before they get any natural level 5 slots. Of course, they still can't know any spells to go in that slot, except by upcasting. There might be some edge case where it's worth it, an additional target via Hold Person or similar, but again, this is an issue with just the plain Sorcerer. A sorlock cannot do this until level 8, which is only one level shy of where a straight Sorcerer has level 5 slots naturally.

And after all that effort, how does it actually play out? You could grab a single level in Warlock, and only be 1 spell level and spell slot level behind, but you'll only get 2 sorcery points per short rest, and you can't run Aspect of the Moon, and you don't have any Invocations, and you don't have your Warlock Pact feature. You could grab 2 levels in warlock, which gets you an invocation choice (AotM is a must), but you're still only getting 2 sorcery points per rest and not getting your Pact feature. Level 3 seems to be the sweet spot, as that's when you can start doing neat things. You also need 2 levels in sorcerer to get spell points. Assuming you start with sorcerer, you'll be level 5 before you get level 2 spells. You could start warlock, but then you're a normal warlock until level 4, or again, don't get level 2 spells.

Level 6 is really the pinnacle of your power. You have level 2 spells, unlimited first and 2nd level spells, your pact feature, metamagic, and everyone else is still 1 level away from level 4 spells. Of course, while you're spamming magic missile or similar, the wizard is tossing out fireball, and you'll quickly notice your spell list is pretty limited. You can't really do much with metamagic, first because you only have 3 sorcery points, and only get 2 back per spell slot eaten, and second, because you can still basically only cast 1 spell per turn (sure, EB+quicken EB can be impressive, but it's oh so wasteful). And then you run into the serious limitation. You don't heal. (Sure, you could run favoured soul sorcerer, but I found that to be pushing things too far. Even if you did, you're talking a pretty major chunk of spells sunk into maintaining your HP). You can use your HD on a short rest, but you don't get them back until you long rest. And then, you only get back half the number spent. If you're only long resting once a week, you'll find yourself low on HD pretty fast. And you don't get the auto-full-heal from long resting. This means you have to be very careful and conservative with your HP, or you'll be a significant drain on the party healer, who will have to skip *their* offensive options just to keep you spamming level 1 spells. Oh, and if you're fighting intelligent enemies, and you start actually spamming spells, you'll get them focusing on you, which just magnifies this problem.

In the campaign where I played one, the only thing it really gave me was sustainable AC of 23, from spamming Shield. It was a 5 PC party full of casters (level 5), so we kinda steamrolled anything when we weren't surprised. Figure a 'standard' day with 8 medium-hard encounters, 4 normal casters each with 2 top-level slots, which turns into someone dropping a level 3 spell in every encounter, plus 2-3 level 2 spells. Most of the time I just drew someone's fire and protected the squishy casters, or fired off EB. The only day my character was substantially more powerful than the rest was in the dungeon run, which lasted a about a day and a half, with a large number of encounters that depleted the other casters. It's not that the coffeelock was suddenly all-powerful, just that it was about as capable as it had been in the morning, and could fight a retreat to buy the wizard time to cast the portable fort spell as a ritual.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Seems like from your post it was fairly difficult to run. I wonder if Celestial Warlock would have eased the healing issue. Even with levels of warlock thats 4d6 extra HP before you need to take that once per week powernap. Divine Soul combined with this with only single spell investment in addition to spending HD makes it easier to sustain.

Of course that means limiting you subclass options.

[Theophilus]

Most of the grief I see is players perceiving advantages without noting costs. Many posts have hit the limitations of the sorlock. In boxing parlance, you're an exceptional middle-weight fighter. Wizards would snub their nose at such maverick spellcasting, and even evokers would roll their eyes at your third quickened Fireball and cast Firestorm.

A purist character has tools a multiclass cannot touch. However, the power of either rests squarely on the creativity of the players and DM to engage each effectively.

[lperkins2]

Seems like from your post it was fairly difficult to run. I wonder if Celestial Warlock would have eased the healing issue. Even with levels of warlock thats 4d6 extra HP before you need to take that once per week powernap. Divine Soul combined with this with only single spell investment in addition to spending HD makes it easier to sustain.

Of course that means limiting you subclass options.

Don't get me wrong, it is certainly a strong 'build'. Up there with SS/XBE ranger and GWM Fighter in terms of sustained damage output. It's just that you'll be as primary a target as those two, and more so if the first couple attacks directed your way indicate you are 'squishy'. Combined with the limited healing (assuming your party isn't using healing spirit or similar), this means you have to pump AC, which means spending points on high Dex.

As you say, Celestial Warlock for healing, or Divine soul Sorcerer ease the healing pressure a lot (which is something I wanted to avoid, since at the start I was playing the only Tier 1 character in the campaign and didn't want to be comparatively unstoppable without support). But they also dictate a lot of your features, and will consume a fair number of your extra generated spell slots.

As an aside, even if you don't have a way to forever go without long-resting, an elf finishes a long rest in 4 hours, giving you 4 short rests after your long rest. At level 5 (s2/w3), this generates 8 first level spell slots.

[Nifft]

I feel like there are uses for a Sorlock beyond the coffeelock archetype. Yes, that's certainly true. It's just the coffeelock is the build which is hate-worthy, so that's why we're talking about it in this thread.


A single level Sorcerer dip for a Warlock would be pretty amazing if you're working with Repelling Blast. The Curse of the Sea trait adds fifteen feet to any spell with a movement effect Is the Repelling Blast invocation a spell?


Mine is easy: 23 short rests is never possible, because you need a really strenuous activity to generate the situation opening the possibility of a short rest.
And except for a life-or-death situation, nothing should qualify if it's only a few minutes total. In that case you've broken the game for every non-coffeelock, since now we can do six hours of heavy labor during our 8-hour long rest -- just "a few minutes" at a time, of course.

You've got a solution that's worse than the initial problem.



So, I played a coffelock for a while, and this pretty much sums it up. There are a few 'housekeeping' things to note though. First is an issue with Sorcerer by itself, in the PHB. The PHB and the SRD have a disagreement about the longevity of sorcery-point-created spell slots. According to the SRD, they expire at the end of a long rest. The PHB (first printing at least) omits any text saying that they expire. Note that the PHB version would allow any sorcerer to convert their spell slots to sorcery points and back, forever storing the created spell slots. This caused my DM some consternation until I pointed out that the SRD specifies they expire at the end of a long rest, and the lack of similar wording in the PHB seems to be a mistake. That's interesting. I guess a PHB Sorcerer could technically do the Coffeelock thing without any Warlock levels, assuming DM cooperation and/or DM brain death.



As for creating up to level 5 slots when you cannot get them via long resting, this is again a 'problem' with just straight sorcerers. Specifically, a sorcerer at level 7 has 7 sorcery points, and can spend them all to make a single level 5 slot, 2 levels before they get any natural level 5 slots. Of course, they still can't know any spells to go in that slot, except by upcasting. There might be some edge case where it's worth it, an additional target via Hold Person or similar, but again, this is an issue with just the plain Sorcerer. A sorlock cannot do this until level 8, which is only one level shy of where a straight Sorcerer has level 5 slots naturally. Not really a problem, though, since doing this as a straight Sorc comes with a significant opportunity cost.


In the campaign where I played one, the only thing it really gave me was sustainable AC of 23, from spamming Shield. It was a 5 PC party full of casters (level 5), so we kinda steamrolled anything when we weren't surprised. Figure a 'standard' day with 8 medium-hard encounters, 4 normal casters each with 2 top-level slots, which turns into someone dropping a level 3 spell in every encounter, plus 2-3 level 2 spells. Most of the time I just drew someone's fire and protected the squishy casters, or fired off EB. The only day my character was substantially more powerful than the rest was in the dungeon run, which lasted a about a day and a half, with a large number of encounters that depleted the other casters. It's not that the coffeelock was suddenly all-powerful, just that it was about as capable as it had been in the morning, and could fight a retreat to buy the wizard time to cast the portable fort spell as a ritual. Sounds like you held back, since you weren't tossing a level 3 spell every round.

[lperkins2]

Sounds like you held back, since you weren't tossing a level 3 spell every round.

I wasn't holding back, the campaign was too dangerous for that. But at level 5 (3w,2s), you can only create level 1 spell slots, at level 6, you finally can create level 2 spell slots. But you only generate 32 sorcery points a night, which is enough for 16 level 1 spell slots. At 8 encounters a day, that's enough for an average of 2 spells per encounter. That is a lot, but only roughly twice as many total slots as a straight sorcerer would have (16 vs 9), and only 2 of them are level 2. If, at level 6, you go to making level 2 slots, you can only make 5 of them a night. Sure, any you manage to not spend get saved, and if you have extended periods of downtime, you can stockpile a bunch, but we never got that. Even if we did, the nearly unlimited supply of first level spells isn't actually as useful in most situations as you might think. Still can only cast one per round, still can only have one CC spell going.

I can't speak to how it would scale at higher levels, since the campaign ended about the time we hit level 7, but my next estimated significant power boost would have been around level 10, when I could finally go to tossing around level 3 spells. Meanwhile, the wizard was going to be using Animate Object starting at level 9.

[Nifft]

I wasn't holding back, the campaign was too dangerous for that. But at level 5 (3w,2s), you can only create level 1 spell slots, at level 6, you finally can create level 2 spell slots. But you only generate 32 sorcery points a night, which is enough for 16 level 1 spell slots. At 8 encounters a day, that's enough for an average of 2 spells per encounter. That is a lot, but only roughly twice as many total slots as a straight sorcerer would have (16 vs 9), and only 2 of them are level 2. If, at level 6, you go to making level 2 slots, you can only make 5 of them a night. Sure, any you manage to not spend get saved, and if you have extended periods of downtime, you can stockpile a bunch, but we never got that. Even if we did, the nearly unlimited supply of first level spells isn't actually as useful in most situations as you might think. Still can only cast one per round, still can only have one CC spell going.

I can't speak to how it would scale at higher levels, since the campaign ended about the time we hit level 7, but my next estimated significant power boost would have been around level 10, when I could finally go to tossing around level 3 spells. Meanwhile, the wizard was going to be using Animate Object starting at level 9.
Ah that makes sense.

I thought you were Sorc 3 / Warlock 2, and that you'd stock-piled sorcery points for months of downtime before the adventure.

You're right that a Coffeelock isn't nearly as impressive if you don't get to weaponize narrative downtime.

[lperkins2]

Ah that makes sense.

I thought you were Sorc 3 / Warlock 2, and that you'd stock-piled sorcery points for months of downtime before the adventure.

You're right that a Coffeelock isn't nearly as impressive if you don't get to weaponize narrative downtime.

So there's basically 2 ways to design a Coffeelock. The first is to only grab 1 or 2 levels of warlock, and then pump everything else into sorcerer. This lets you only barely delay your spell progression, so you'll be tossing the same level spells as the rest of the party, or maybe one level behind, and can do it all day. But as you say, it requires using your downtime to recharge your batteries, since your power influx is a trickle. It also leaves you vulnerable to exhaustion and other effects that require long-resting to fix, assuming the party doesn't have access to greater restoration. After all, you can have 10k spell slots when the adventure starts, if on day one you pick up a level of exhaustion, you now either get to do the rest of the adventure exhausted, or dump your spell slots. This would be the unreliable way to design a Coffeelock.

The second is to build them up more or less evenly, even favouring warlock by several levels. This lets you continue to increase the number of sorcery points you generate each night, which turns into sustainable low level spell spam, at the expense of your higher level spells. Since you can reliably generate about as many spells as you expend in a day, there's no need to spend all your downtime stacking in short rests, and being forced to long rest in some way or another isn't a huge deal, it just leaves you a few spell slots light the next day.

Since I went PotT, with the ritual invocation, when we'd have a light day, I'd actually spend a fair amount of time scribing spells from the Wizard into my book, and doing other crafting things while the party slept. Honestly, the far bigger disruption to the campaign came from the fact that I never slept, and had an owl familiar who slept most of the day and kept watch at night. The DM was somewhat bothered by the incredible difficulty in ambushing us at night.

[Citan]

In that case you've broken the game for every non-coffeelock, since now we can do six hours of heavy labor during our 8-hour long rest -- just "a few minutes" at a time, of course.

You purposely deform the idea I put in my post, to the point of giving to it the exact opposite meaning, just to denigrate my point.
I guess pursuing dicussion here is useless.

[Kane0]

The easiest way to avoid sorlock hate is to roleplay him as a popular but oft maligned movie actor, preferably with delusions of grandeur.

[Nifft]

So there's basically 2 ways to design a Coffeelock. The first is to only grab 1 or 2 levels of warlock, and then pump everything else into sorcerer. This lets you only barely delay your spell progression, so you'll be tossing the same level spells as the rest of the party, or maybe one level behind, and can do it all day. But as you say, it requires using your downtime to recharge your batteries, since your power influx is a trickle. It also leaves you vulnerable to exhaustion and other effects that require long-resting to fix, assuming the party doesn't have access to greater restoration. After all, you can have 10k spell slots when the adventure starts, if on day one you pick up a level of exhaustion, you now either get to do the rest of the adventure exhausted, or dump your spell slots. This would be the unreliable way to design a Coffeelock.

The second is to build them up more or less evenly, even favouring warlock by several levels. This lets you continue to increase the number of sorcery points you generate each night, which turns into sustainable low level spell spam, at the expense of your higher level spells. Since you can reliably generate about as many spells as you expend in a day, there's no need to spend all your downtime stacking in short rests, and being forced to long rest in some way or another isn't a huge deal, it just leaves you a few spell slots light the next day.

Since I went PotT, with the ritual invocation, when we'd have a light day, I'd actually spend a fair amount of time scribing spells from the Wizard into my book, and doing other crafting things while the party slept. Honestly, the far bigger disruption to the campaign came from the fact that I never slept, and had an owl familiar who slept most of the day and kept watch at night. The DM was somewhat bothered by the incredible difficulty in ambushing us at night. The former build is the one with which I'm most familiar, and the downtime recharge thing is exactly what makes it broken -- that's a narrative hand-wave for everyone else, but for the Coffeelock (or PHB no-errata Sorcerer) it's a resource to be mined.

The latter build seems pretty reasonable -- as you say, it's a trade-off between higher-level spells and low-level slot spam.

Tell your DM that night-time ambushes are a sometimes food.



You purposely deform the idea I put in my post, to the point of giving to it the exact opposite meaning, just to denigrate my point.
I guess pursuing dicussion here is useless.

Really, denigrate? You think I'm attacking the character of your point, just by pointing out its logical conclusion?

Your idea is bad, and pursuing discussion here won't make your idea better, but it might end up with you having better ideas -- especially if you're open to criticism, and don't take the valid criticism of your (bad) ideas too personally.

[Matrix_Walker]

Mine is easy: 23 short rests is never possible, because you need a really strenuous activity to generate the situation opening the possibility of a short rest.
And except for a life-or-death situation, nothing should qualify if it's only a few minutes total.

It's probably not easy, or even possible, to present it as RAW though because RAW only speaks about the process of resting itself and of what could break the ongoing process, but never of the "state" that represents the starting point of the process.
In fact there is no "rested state vs tired state" per RAW, but it's really the notion that could prevent metagaming imo.

But since RAW is imo intrinsically blurry in defining authorized activities, I guess it was supposed to fall into each DM's authority in the first place. :)

I think being tired enough in some way (expending a resource that is restored by a shirt rest) should ample prerequisite.

The absense of a statement to the contrary does not imply the intention to use GM fiat in my opinion. It simply means there is no prerequisite.

[Tetrasodium]

Is the Repelling Blast invocation a spell?

here is the breakdown...
Eldritch blast:A beam of crackling energy streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage.
The spell creates more than one beam w hen you reach higher levels: two beam s at 5th level, three beams at 11th level, and four beam s at 17th level. You can direct the beam s at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate attack roll for each beam.
Repelling Blast(invocation): When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.
Agonizing Blast(invocation): When you cast eldritch blast, add your Charisma modifier to the damage it deals on a hit.
Grasp of Hadar (invocation)Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can move that creature in a straight line 10 feet closer to you..... At least they limited it to 1/turn after obvious applications like being able to bounce a foe back & forth through spells like wall of thorns
Lance of Lethargy(invocation): Once on each of your turns when you hit a creature with your eldritch blast, you can reduce that creature’s speed by 10 feet until the end of your next turn .

no warlock above level 2 foregoes agonizing blast for long. Add in repelling blast and you have a no save ranged spell attack with 120foot range (300 with yet another invocation) & you have a cantrip that outdamages many leveled spells while also surpassing leveled battlefield control spells thanks to giving similar movement and being something you can spam every round. That's not to mention the incredible range.... thorn whip 30' range 10' move d6 damage,no +statmod... lightning lure 15' range, str save d8's damage, no +statmod. ray of frost, 60' range, debuff speed 10', d8s damage, no +statmod. Infestation, 30' range, 5' random direction, con save.

stick one or two scorlocks with agonizing repelling eldritch blast & the only thing your GM can do is A: "make everything ranged attackers" or B:"put crazy AC on everything". They don't need to be a coffeelock to piss everyone off, they just need to chose invocations that force an arms race or be the embodiment of the woman in red here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0) while making the claim credibly.

[Arkhios]

stick one or two scorlocks with agonizing repelling eldritch blast & the only thing your GM can do is A: "make everything ranged attackers" or B:"put crazy AC on everything". They don't need to be a coffeelock to piss everyone off, they just need to chose invocations that force an arms race or be the embodiment of the woman in red here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO23WBji_Z0) while making the claim credibly.

C: Put a bunch of heavy hitting monsters with immunity to force damage (protip: they exist, and in Monster Manual already!) and your warlock is quite soon crying to his or her patron because their toys were broken.

[Kane0]

Helmed Horrors. I swear they were made specifically to deal with Warlocks and Magic Missile spammers.

[Arkhios]

Helmed Horrors. I swear they were made specifically to deal with Warlocks and Magic Missile spammers.

*Evil laughter*

As a delicious bonus: Helmed Horror is immune to three spells of your choice*! xD


*literal words are "chosen by its creator", but if you're the DM and you're running a homebrew campaign, it's totally up to you.

[Citan]

Really, denigrate? You think I'm attacking the character of your point, just by pointing out its logical conclusion?

Your idea is bad, and pursuing discussion here won't make your idea better, but it might end up with you having better ideas -- especially if you're open to criticism, and don't take the valid criticism of your (bad) ideas too personally.
The thing is, either you understood my idea and posted in bad faith, or you didn't understand at all so you have no idea whether it's good or bad.

Because, I repeat, what you presented as a consequence of my idea was exactly the opposite of what I meant.
So until you take the time to think about it, it's useless to discuss.


I think being tired enough in some way (expending a resource that is restored by a shirt rest) should ample prerequisite.

The absense of a statement to the contrary does not imply the intention to use GM fiat in my opinion. It simply means there is no prerequisite.
Agreed on that, usually, since the simple fact there is a "numbered resource" to track with limited use means it's a very special thing.
But that is also why short-rest features are so scarce except for Monk (which doesn't get much ways to abuse it until high-level, with few out-of-combat features).
That is especially the reason why Warlock gets only 2 slots for a very long time.

It's only for an *abusing* Sorlock (in normal campaigns) or any (Sor)Warlock (for some specific campaigns) that this may be a problem. Hence my thought.
To illustrate: in one of the games I runned, was a Sorlock with only 2nd level spells. With me ruling per RAW, he was more powerful than a 13th level caster.
Because he took many non-combat spells, and that one-shot was keen on everything else than combat (or, to be more accurate, one-shot provided several situations in which direct confrontation was the obvious way, but they went to great lengths to avoid fight because they knew they weren't armed for it). He also went Tome Pact so had several rituals.

But that was fine, because it was a 2-man party, with the other being a Rogue with additional perks, and they were very complementary to each other. So overall no tip-toeing. (Also, I helped them design characters, so obviously I knew in advance and validated it ;) So of course I was fine with it, and them along).

But it was impressive: using Enhance Ability nearly every time (even if it really made a difference only a few times ^^), double-casting Sleep on a group of guards then finding a place to hide for an hour, silently breaking objects (Knock + Silence ritual), using short-timed Suggestions or Charm Person to divert people, Extending Comprehend Languages to spy...

The "worse" part is that technically, the only part of Sorlock that helped him being breakingly good was Subtle and Extend metamagics and the added spell versatility. He otherwise never bothered munchkining slot conversion. But in "city days", as a Warlock you can easily pump out a dozen of casts without forcing yourself. Between meals (morning, middday, evening), social interactions in a relaxed setting (discussing in a bar, negociating in a shop), as long as you consider that consuming a numbered resource is enough to trigger a countdown for a rest, it's very easy to get more than a handful of them.

That's why the Warlock is so amazingly good, possibly balance-breaking good, in non-combat campaigns, especially with a way to cast without being upfront about it. But that's obvious, since even if there are three pillars in the game, most mechanics and balance revolve around encounters management.

Even Monk cannot compare, because apart from 4e most of its features are directly combat-related, and even 4E utility abilities are very limited compared to the array of spells a caster can use, especially at low levels.


In other circumstances, such as a munchkin caster in a larger group trying to abuse short-rests, provided he doesn't listen my warnings (or unless everyone is fine with that, which may happen) I would have certainly houseruled that Pact Magic slots were incompatible with the Sorcerer's long-rest slot conversion.
Problem solved.

[Nifft]

here is the breakdown...
[list] Eldritch blast:A beam of crackling energy streaks toward a creature within range. Make a ranged spell attack against the target. On a hit, the target takes 1d10 force damage.
The spell creates more than one beam w hen you reach higher levels: two beam s at 5th level, three beams at 11th level, and four beam s at 17th level. You can direct the beam s at the same target or at different ones. Make a separate attack roll for each beam.
Repelling Blast(invocation): When you hit a creature with eldritch blast, you can push the creature up to 10 feet away from you in a straight line.
Well, here's the thing.

Eldritch Blast is a spell that has no movement effect.

Those two movement invocations trigger when you hit with the spell, but they don't modify the spell itself. They are non-spell magic effects which move a target when the trigger condition is met.


The Curse of the Sea trait adds fifteen feet to any spell with a movement effect

There is movement, and it's associated with the spell Eldritch Blast, but the spell does not have any movement effect. The movement effects are from non-spell Invocations.

(Yes, this is nit-picking. However I think it's also correct.)




The thing is, either you understood my idea and posted in bad faith, or you didn't understand at all so you have no idea whether it's good or bad.

Because, I repeat, what you presented as a consequence of my idea was exactly the opposite of what I meant.
So until you take the time to think about it, it's useless to discuss. Apparently I understand the implications of your idea slightly better than you seem to understand them, so I'm posting the logical conclusion of those implications.

Either a long rest can be voluntarily interrupted, or it can't.
- If a long rest can't be voluntarily interrupted (which is the functional result of your idea), then there are a lot of abuses, which I mention a few of briefly.
- If a long rest can be voluntarily interrupted, then Coffeelock can abuse long rest mechanics, and the Coffeelock needs to be fixed. (This is the current state of the universe.)

So yeah. I think I understand. I hope you also understand now. Ciao.

[Citan]

There is movement, and it's associated with the spell Eldritch Blast, but the spell does not have any movement effect. The movement effects are from non-spell Invocations.

(Yes, this is nit-picking. However I think it's also correct.)



Apparently I understand the implications of your idea slightly better than you seem to understand them, so I'm posting the logical conclusion of those implications.

Either a long rest can be voluntarily interrupted, or it can't.
- If a long rest can't be voluntarily interrupted (which is the functional result of your idea), then there are a lot of abuses, which I mention a few of briefly.
- If a long rest can be voluntarily interrupted, then Coffeelock can abuse long rest mechanics, and the Coffeelock needs to be fixed. (This is the current state of the universe.)

So yeah. I think I understand. I hope you also understand now. Ciao.
And so you prove you didn't understand at all. :)
My idea was: there is no "trigger" to start the countdown for a rest until you meet a tiredness prerequisite.
Which is impractical as hell to implement in 5e as is because of Warlock and Monk classes (and overall how 5e was designed in the first place), no doubt on that. Which is why I didn't pursue in detail.
But this would prevent the kind of abuse we're discussing while not at all preventing someone from voluntarily breaking the rest countdown.

Also, you're wrong about Eldricht Blast imo: the Invocation alters the spell to add a movement effect. As long as you have the Invocation, it's like the text was rewritten. And the fact the movement is optional is irrelevant: many spells and features that sport movement as is put it as an option (Lightning Lure, Thorns Whip for quick examples).

[Beelzebubba]

Some people might get jealous or feel you're stealing their spotlight... that's part the job of your DM to handle (giving everyone a chance to shine), and part theirs, to optimise a bit on latter levels, if they want to be better at stuff.

That's assuming only one play style, 'storytelling' where the GM explicitly shapes things to cater to individuals.

In a more 'procedural' setting, where the GM sets up environments that react to character's actions, then that optimizer will always steal spotlight. In that case, the 'job of the DM' is to allow or disallow things in the game to make that work.

In a nutshell: it isn't the DM's job to work harder to cater to a single player acting selfishly. It's the job of all players to cater to the whole table cooperatively.

If a single player optimizes to the point that it affects the GM and other players, that single player needs to change.

[Citan]

That's assuming only one play style, 'storytelling' where the GM explicitly shapes things to cater to individuals.

In a more 'procedural' setting, where the GM sets up environments that react to character's actions, then that optimizer will always steal spotlight. In that case, the 'job of the DM' is to allow or disallow things in the game to make that work.

In a nutshell: it isn't the DM's job to work harder to cater to a single player acting selfishly. It's the job of all players to cater to the whole table cooperatively.

If a single player optimizes to the point that it affects the GM and other players, that single player needs to change.
Agreed. DM has a bigger responsability than others in that kind of things but (s)he just cannot bear everything on shoulders alone.

[Tetrasodium]

C: Put a bunch of heavy hitting monsters with immunity to force damage (protip: they exist, and in Monster Manual already!) and your warlock is quite soon crying to his or her patron because their toys were broken.

you misspelled "it" (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=&filter-cr-max=&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-has-lair=&filter-damage-immunity=48). It's not like eldritch blast deals poison damage or some other element/alignment damage with scores of monsters capable of ignoring it. Yes as a GM I could throw in helmed horrors occasionally, but the party is going to get real tired of the helmed horror show real fast the longer it continues. Force damage is generally considered one of the better damage types because almost nothing is immune or
resistant to it.

Are you really suggesting that force & poison damage should change places in the immunity boxes in order to correct the fact that someone at WotC lost their mind with eldritch blast & made practically everything that should have been a casterific feat into an invocation while making so many mutually beneficial invocations that you could never just make a feat like martial adept/magic initiate for invocations?

[Nifft]

Mine is easy: 23 short rests is never possible, because you need a really strenuous activity to generate the situation opening the possibility of a short rest.
And except for a life-or-death situation, nothing should qualify if it's only a few minutes total. Your long rests are apparently impossible to voluntarily interrupt, yet...


And so you prove you didn't understand at all. :)
My idea was: there is no "trigger" to start the countdown for a rest until you meet a tiredness prerequisite.

That isn't what you said previously, but whatever. Your new bad idea is also breaking more than fixing.

That's doubly true when the Warlock gets an invocation to never suffer from lack of rest -- presumably that Warlock is allowed to take a short or long rest at some point, in spite of mechanically never needing rest, right?



you misspelled "it" (https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters?filter-type=0&filter-search=&filter-cr-min=&filter-cr-max=&filter-armor-class-min=&filter-armor-class-max=&filter-average-hp-min=&filter-average-hp-max=&filter-is-legendary=&filter-has-lair=&filter-damage-immunity=48). It's not like eldritch blast deals poison damage or some other element/alignment damage with scores of monsters capable of ignoring it. Yes as a GM I could throw in helmed horrors occasionally, but the party is going to get real tired of the helmed horror show real fast the longer it continues. Force damage is generally considered one of the better damage types because almost nothing is immune or
resistant to it.

Are you really suggesting that force & poison damage should change places in the immunity boxes in order to correct the fact that someone at WotC lost their mind with eldritch blast & made practically everything that should have been a casterific feat into an invocation while making so many mutually beneficial invocations that you could never just make a feat like martial adept/magic initiate for invocations? Yeah there's no easy way to block Eldritch Blast, and that's apparently by design, just as Magic Missile was once a very reliable damage source.

Now that Eldritch Blast has supplanted Magic Missile as the go-to level 1 reliable damage source, I wonder if Shield should start negating Eldritch Blast as well.

[Segev]

C: Put a bunch of heavy hitting monsters with immunity to force damage (protip: they exist, and in Monster Manual already!) and your warlock is quite soon crying to his or her patron because their toys were broken.

The Invocations don't say, "when you damage a creature with eldritch blast." They say, "when you hit a creature." (Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't matter if it's immune to force damage; you still can shove it around, reduce its movement, etc. You need to miss to fail to do so.

[Tetrasodium]

Your long rests are apparently impossible to voluntarily interrupt, yet...



That isn't what you said previously, but whatever. Your new bad idea is also breaking more than fixing.

That's doubly true when the Warlock gets an invocation to never suffer from lack of rest -- presumably that Warlock is allowed to take a short or long rest at some point, in spite of mechanically never needing rest, right?


Yeah there's no easy way to block Eldritch Blast, and that's apparently by design, just as Magic Missile was once a very reliable damage source.

Now that Eldritch Blast has supplanted Magic Missile as the go-to level 1 reliable damage source, I wonder if Shield should start negating Eldritch Blast as well.

Probably. Given that my players will be going up against a bunch of Deathlocks tomorrow, I think I'll let them decide >:D
edit: got ninja'd


The Invocations don't say, "when you damage a creature with eldritch blast." They say, "when you hit a creature." (Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't matter if it's immune to force damage; you still can shove it around, reduce its movement, etc. You need to miss to fail to do so.


That is an excellent point.

[Arkhios]

The Invocations don't say, "when you damage a creature with eldritch blast." They say, "when you hit a creature." (Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't matter if it's immune to force damage; you still can shove it around, reduce its movement, etc. You need to miss to fail to do so.

Hence, their toys are broken, not taken away.
I'm aware of that. Honestly, being tossed around ten feet per hit is the least thing to worry about. Especially if it's the only thing remaining.

@Tetra, did I strike a vein or something, since you're bleeding that much over a word 'they' vs. 'it' (intentionally leaving room for other potentially similar creatures that may yet come someday)? Chill, mate. It was nothing personal, anyway.

[Waterdeep Merch]

Now that Eldritch Blast has supplanted Magic Missile as the go-to level 1 reliable damage source, I wonder if Shield should start negating Eldritch Blast as well.
Shield kind of already does, since EB still needs to hit your AC. I know it annoys my warlock players when they see a Shield go up after the first bolt. At least fighters can redirect their additional attacks, warlocks can't refocus bolts just because the first one triggered a higher AC for the rest.

[Spiritchaser]

Now that Eldritch Blast has supplanted Magic Missile as the go-to level 1 reliable damage source, I wonder if Shield should start negating Eldritch Blast as well.

Shield already places a -5 penalty on the to hit roll. It does not require more

Edit: curses, I am too SLOW!

[Tetrasodium]

Hence, their toys are broken, not taken away.
I'm aware of that. Honestly, being tossed around ten feet per hit is the least thing to worry about. Especially if it's the only thing remaining.

@Tetra, did I strike a vein or something, since you're bleeding that much over a word 'they' vs. 'it' (intentionally leaving room for other potentially similar creatures that may yet come someday)? Chill, mate. It was nothing personal, anyway.

we are talking about a problematic spell, i listed the two bad counters against it & you flippantly suggested (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=23207720#post23207720) a third that neither addresses the problem nor is anywhere near as prevalent as you make it out to be given only a single monster exists that is force immune (which doesn't help).

I think the problem that might be contributing to your nothing to worry about position is that you are underestimating eldritch blast & think it is less powerful than it is. While every other cantrip in the game scales with extra dice, eldritch blast scales by adding extra bolts. This makes both the +charisma damage and movement effects multiplicative. at 4th you have 2 blasts, at 11th you have 3 blasts, at 17 you have 4. each of those bolts gain the benefits of both agonizing and repelling blast

I suppose that if quicklings & quetzalcoatlus are a major component of your campaign it might not be a big deal having one or more players moving things back 10-40 feet every round on top of nice damage. Given that scorlocks have charisma as the ultimate SAD (https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Multiple_Ability_Dependency) stat in 5e so charisma is likely to be maxed asap.

[Segev]

While every other cantrip in the game scales with extra dice, eldritch blast scales by adding extra bolts. This makes both the +charisma damage and movement effects multiplicative. at 4th you have 2 blasts, at 11th you have 3 blasts, at 17 you have 4. each of those bolts gain the benefits of both agonizing and repelling blast.

Accurate for repelling blast, as you mentioned, but it's worth noting that the slow and pull Invocations are each once per turn. Not even once per enemy per turn; once per turn. So you can't stack them, or even spread them around.

Though you could pick one guy out of a group by Repelling Blasting with all but one of your shots, and Grasp of Hadar-ing with one of them. Creates 20 feet of separation where they might've been clustered before. Good for yanking somebody out of their bodyguards, for example.

[Nifft]

The Invocations don't say, "when you damage a creature with eldritch blast." They say, "when you hit a creature." (Emphasis mine.)

It doesn't matter if it's immune to force damage; you still can shove it around, reduce its movement, etc. You need to miss to fail to do so. I think that hitting is also negated by a creature being immune to a spell (e.g. the Helmed Horror's creator picks Eldritch Blast as one of its 3 spell immunities).


Accurate for repelling blast, as you mentioned, but it's worth noting that the slow and pull Invocations are each once per turn. Not even once per enemy per turn; once per turn. So you can't stack them, or even spread them around.

Though you could pick one guy out of a group by Repelling Blasting with all but one of your shots, and Grasp of Hadar-ing with one of them. Creates 20 feet of separation where they might've been clustered before. Good for yanking somebody out of their bodyguards, for example.

Yeah, it's quite useful to forcefully exchange the positions of the caster / archer / hostage & the frontline blockers.

Can you pull / push a grappling creature off of an ally?

[Segev]

I think that hitting is also negated by a creature being immune to a spell (e.g. the Helmed Horror's creator picks Eldritch Blast as one of its 3 spell immunities).Oh, sure, if they're flat-out immune to the spell, no modifiers to the spell will matter. But mere immunity to force damage will only prevent, well, force damage. Not the rider effects on being hit.


Yeah, it's quite useful to forcefully exchange the positions of the caster / archer / hostage & the frontline blockers.

Can you pull / push a grappling creature off of an ally?I don't know 5e's grapple rules well enough. If I had to make a snap judgment, I'd require a Strength or Grapple check to maintain hold. If they did, the two would move as a unit.

[Kadesh]

Forced Movment breaks a grapple. No penalty to hit unless the Grappler has been proned as well.

[Tetrasodium]

I think that hitting is also negated by a creature being immune to a spell (e.g. the Helmed Horror's creator picks Eldritch Blast as one of its 3 spell immunities).



Yeah, it's quite useful to forcefully exchange the positions of the caster / archer / hostage & the frontline blockers.

Can you pull / push a grappling creature off of an ally?


I'm not sure that I'd say that is anything but an outright admission that repelling blast is stupid broken if the only counter to multiple repelling blast scorlocks in a party is to put out the creature that can be immune to that spell or lay down an AMF.

[Nifft]

I'm not sure that I'd say that is anything but an outright admission that repelling blast is stupid broken if the only counter to multiple repelling blast scorlocks in a party is to put out the creature that can be immune to that spell or lay down an AMF.

There were some posts upthread about how missing the target due to high AC / cover / the Shield spell / whatever else would also negate the push effect.

That's probably a lot more common across tables than Helmed Horrors, which honestly don't even appear in my settings.

[Tetrasodium]

There were some posts upthread about how missing the target due to high AC / cover / the Shield spell / whatever else would also negate the push effect.

That's probably a lot more common across tables than Helmed Horrors, which honestly don't even appear in my settings.

Yes, some ofmine being more than one of them. The problem with boosting ac high enough to make it hard for a warlock to hit is going to make it hard or impossible for everyone without save for x way of doing damage. The scorlock can add their charisma to so many things that they above every other SAD class look positively MAD so is certain to minmax their charisma as much as possible as fast as possible compared to the other classes who don't get an additional feat-like equivalent every couple levels on top of the normal asi every 4. Yes fighters have bonus feats, but it's hardly the same

[Nifft]

an outright admission that repelling blast is stupid broken if the only counter to multiple repelling blast scorlocks in a party is to put out the creature that can be immune to that spell or lay down an AMF. How can you possibly square that claim with this:


Yes, some ofmine being more than one of them. The problem with boosting ac high enough to make it hard for a warlock to hit is going to make it hard or impossible for everyone without save for x way of doing damage.

You knew that Helmed Horrors were not "the only counter", so why make a blatantly dishonest claim like that?


Seriously, even a wall would be a viable counter to repelling blast, since you can't repelling blast someone through a solid object. Small rooms or other confined spaces -- for example, the rooms and halls of a typical dungeon -- break the tactic entirely.

There are plenty of counters, of which I cited one (then in this post, I cited another).

Why bother trying to dishonestly characterize my post in specific?

[Tetrasodium]

How can you possibly square that claim with this:



You knew that Helmed Horrors were not "the only counter", so why make a blatantly dishonest claim like that?


Seriously, even a wall would be a viable counter to repelling blast, since you can't repelling blast someone through a solid object. Small rooms or other confined spaces -- for example, the rooms and halls of a typical dungeon -- break the tactic entirely.

There are plenty of counters, of which I cited one (then in this post, I cited another).

Why bother trying to dishonestly characterize my post in specific?

the context of those two posts and what they are replying to is important man. high ac bleeps over every noncaster class (and some casters), force immune is irrelevant because you only need to hit & only one creature in the game has it. Those first two are so problematic that they are practically nonstarters. I threw a bleeping marut(ac22 400+hp) at a party of level 10's going for one of the two repelling agonizing blast scorlocks with cause, it could not even get to the scorlocks without spending multiple rounds dashing & when it did get there he just misty stepped away before the marut could attack next round. eventually they killed it with only a cowardly rogue getting killed & that was because the scorlocks pushed it over him & it blasted him to bits before starting to dash. An AC22 marut with 432 hp is no slouch for a party of level 10's with the two scorlocks both preventing most of the damage by keeping it away from everyone and causing most of the damage. The barbarian didn't have the dex to keep up at range, the ranger's longbow does a d8 instead of d10. The moon druid didn't want to get close enough to melee & has no cantrips that compare to 2 blast repelling agonizing blast. The rogue kept trying to stab it & cunning action disengage out of range up until a warlock forced the marut back over him & he died when it happened a second time followed by a crit fail. It truly was an exercise in "everything you can do I can do better".

A wall or confined spaces would indeed help, but those things screw over every other ranged character as well & are the very definition of dm vrs players

[Nifft]

the context of those two posts and what they are replying to is important man. high ac bleeps over every noncaster class (and some casters), force immune is irrelevant because you only need to hit & only one creature in the game has it. Those first two are so problematic that they are practically nonstarters. I threw a bleeping marut(ac22 400+hp) at a party of level 10's going for one of the two repelling agonizing blast scorlocks with cause, it could not even get to the scorlocks without spending multiple rounds dashing & when it did get there he just misty stepped away before the marut could attack next round. eventually they killed it with only a cowardly rogue getting killed & that was because the scorlocks pushed it over him & it blasted him to bits before starting to dash. An AC22 marut with 432 hp is no slouch for a party of level 10's with the two scorlocks both preventing most of the damage by keeping it away from everyone and causing most of the damage. The barbarian didn't have the dex to keep up at range, the ranger's longbow does a d8 instead of d10. The moon druid didn't want to get close enough to melee & has no cantrips that compare to 2 blast repelling agonizing blast. The rogue kept trying to stab it & cunning action disengage out of range up until a warlock forced the marut back over him & he died when it happened a second time followed by a crit fail. It truly was an exercise in "everything you can do I can do better". Sounds like you had a rough time with something that's totally unrelated to my post, and you just needed to vent.

Hope you feel better now.


A wall or confined spaces would indeed help, but those things screw over every other ranged character as well & are the very definition of dm vrs players Nah, using a variety of terrain types -- including indoor and outdoor locations -- should be pretty normal, and isn't particularly adversarial.

In your situation, I'd personally aim for 50% indoor fights, just because that seems like fewer than normal, and that would reward the ranged PCs a bit. That leaves 50% outdoor fights, and then 10% weird stuff like dreamscapes or the ever-changing chaos of Limbo. (As a DM you should always give 110%.)

[Tetrasodium]

Sounds like you had a rough time with something that's totally unrelated to my post, and you just needed to vent.

Hope you feel better now.

Nah, using a variety of terrain types -- including indoor and outdoor locations -- should be pretty normal, and isn't particularly adversarial.

In your situation, I'd personally aim for 50% indoor fights, just because that seems like fewer than normal, and that would reward the ranged PCs a bit. That leaves 50% outdoor fights, and then 10% weird stuff like dreamscapes or the ever-changing chaos of Limbo. (As a DM you should always give 110%.)


The problem is that the marut fight is how every fight goes. The marut just had the AC & hp to drag out the inevitable.

Yes small rooms are something that helps at first glance But....
does it have a straight hallway? Scorlock A: I stay out in the hall guys... I wait down here in the hall & ready an action to repelling eldritch blast it down the hall. Scorlock B: me too
is the hallway curvy enough to limit repelling blast's effectiveness?... it's going to screw over every other ranged character.
is the forest (or whatever) filled with enough trees/debris/etc to make getting LoS for eldritch blast? too bad that screws over any other ranged attackers
outdoor locations make repelling blast even more powerful because there is no walls to stop the pushback & eldritch blast has a staggering 120' range putting it at one of the longest range cantrips in the game. combined with agonizing blast it will be on par with the single target damage of many leveled spells given decent charisma.
throw out too many opponents to keep repelled into uselessness? eldritch blast has a 120 foot range & your average scorlock is going to be moving at 25-30 feet/round at minimum letting him just retreat until... mistystep.
Not every dungeron can be Tuckers Kobolds (https://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/TuckersKobolds.pdf) & it's unfair to the other players if they are.

[Nifft]

The problem is that the marut fight is how every fight goes. The marut just had the AC & hp to drag out the inevitable.

I want to give you kudos for that pun.

[Willie the Duck]

does it have a straight hallway? Scorlock A: I stay out in the hall guys... I wait down here in the hall & ready an action to repelling eldritch blast it down the hall. Scorlock B: me too

Well, I don't want to be dismissive of your concerns, because they are legitimate. The Warlock, by themselves, and with sorcerer add-ons (ignoring coffeelock madness for the moment), is a rather discordant beast, being in some ways underwhelming yet at the same time able to be a serious monkey-wrencher.

A few thoughts.
that poor party that has two scorlocks on the day when you do pull something that they don't have an answer for (perhaps a melee-focused fight that yes screws over other ranged builds too, but seriously, how does this overly focused party survive?)
this isn't the only time when a two warlock party has a weird dynamic. Two combatants who can both see through magical darkness can also lay waste in certain situations.
two of any focused build has the potential to make a mockery of your plans until you run it up against something it is weak against (upon which it collapses in a potential route/TPK and players either bleat or roll up something else). A party with two sorcadins will Nova your best laid opponents into the ground until you attack them (perhaps from range) when they are depleted and then they are dead and then they are not the point of comparison. I'm not sure that that is a problem with the game, so much as a problem with the players or incentivization structure.
all the (many of them pretty reasonable) ways to shut down this technique also shut down other ranged builds? Um... too bad...? If 'they have a wall behind them, such that they can't be pushed back any farther' hamstrings your strategy, perhaps a better strategy is in order.

[Tetrasodium]

Well, I don't want to be dismissive of your concerns, because they are legitimate. The Warlock, by themselves, and with sorcerer add-ons (ignoring coffeelock madness for the moment), is a rather discordant beast, being in some ways underwhelming yet at the same time able to be a serious monkey-wrencher.

A few thoughts.
A: that poor party that has two scorlocks on the day when you do pull something that they don't have an answer for (perhaps a melee-focused fight that yes screws over other ranged builds too, but seriously, how does this overly focused party survive?)
B: this isn't the only time when a two warlock party has a weird dynamic. Two combatants who can both see through magical darkness can also lay waste in certain situations.
C: two of any focused build has the potential to make a mockery of your plans until you run it up against something it is weak against (upon which it collapses in a potential route/TPK and players either bleat or roll up something else). A party with two sorcadins will Nova your best laid opponents into the ground until you attack them (perhaps from range) when they are depleted and then they are dead and then they are not the point of comparison. I'm not sure that that is a problem with the game, so much as a problem with the players or incentivization structure.
D: all the (many of them pretty reasonable) ways to shut down this technique also shut down other ranged builds? Um... too bad...? If 'they have a wall behind them, such that they can't be pushed back any farther' hamstrings your strategy, perhaps a better strategy is in order.


I added the lettering for clarity

A:Between the barbarian & moon druid there are plenty of tanking ability & anything that can get past them still needs to deal with "and I ready my bonus action to misty step away if." As to screwing over the other ranged builds like the party ranger?.. both of them are talking about picking up spell sniper at 12 to ignore half & three quarters cover, luckily that will not interfere with their bonus feat ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delete_character)Invocation gathering.
B: everyone else in the party has darkvision, but they might as well be nearsighted humans given the devils sight in the two scorlocks who see through every kind of darkness including the darkness spell
C:That's the problem there is nothing it is weak against with 120' range+20'*2knockback & misty step.
D: They can't really do anything either If the room is 20&20 that's a total of 16 squares. The moon druid bear takes up four of those bringing it to 12 & the barbarian reduces it one more. Very little can stand up to a close range fight with a moon druid, barbarian, scorlock, & scorlock even if everyone is rolling min damage every attack, the barbarian is doing 16 points of damage/round, the moon druid is doing around 10-14ish, the scorlocks are doing 24(6+6+6+6). If something does get close, they can just misty step away out the door


Yea I could do things like throw out 5-6 pit fiends or something, turn it into the beholder show, or throw out an army of quiklings & such... but it's hardly fair to instagib the rest of the party

[lperkins2]

I added the lettering for clarity
[list]
A:Between the barbarian & moon druid there are plenty of tanking ability & anything that can get past them still needs to deal with "and I ready my bonus action to misty step away if." As to screwing over the other ranged builds like the party ranger?.. both of them are talking about picking up spell sniper at 12 to ignore half & three quarters cover, luckily that will not interfere with their bonus feat

You can't ready a bonus action. You cannot use an action to cast a bonus action spell, and you can only ready actions. If you have something beyond misty step, sure, but not misty step. And readying a spell expends the spell slot, even if the trigger never arises.

[Zalabim]

It sounds like ya'll need to pray. Just drop down on your hands and knees and that's it. You're now prone, so distant attacks have disadvantage. If you have to Dash across a long distance without cover, it's faster than Dodging and safer than standing out in the open.