Do I coffeelock right?

[gnollgnoll]

tl;dr Eladrin celestial coffeesorc

I'm joining a Hoard of Dragon Queen campaign. Three players except me, half-elves Paladin, Ranger and human Fighter, so I'm taking a caster class with some healing. Our DM is very generous with stats, I've got 15, 16 and 17, any character can be good with high stats.
I'm staring with three levels of Warlock, then switching to Sorc. Urchin because backstory, skills: Arcana, Deception (Warlock), Perception (Elf), Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Urchin).
Progression:
1. I'm planning Cure Wounds from expanded spell list and Hex, there are also free cantrips, Light and Sacred Flame. Of course I'm taking Eldritch Blast and Minor Illusion.
2. Warlock's 1st level spells are kinda lame. Charm Person? Hellish Rebuke? Invocations here are Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast as EB is main attack cantrip
3. Lesser restoration because Paladin's Lay hands may not be always available. Pact of Chain gives me sprite (not imp, the character is not evil), invisible stealthy creature that can open doors, steal or plant items and so on.
4. Switching to Dragon Sorcerer, it gives AC, Draconic language and hit points to match warlock's. Shield and Absorb Elements for better survivability. Cantrips are Friends, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and one more. Thunderclap? Shocking Grasp?
5. Burning Hands are poor man's Fireball. From here I get 8 additional 1st lvl spell slots per long rest: 4 hours of elf trance and 4 short rests. My DM is okay with that, at least for now.
6. Something for control: Web, Maximillian's Earthen Grasp, Phantasmal Force. Quickened and Twinned metamagic. From here I can shoot 4 Eldrich Blast rays per turn.
7. The most efficient sorcery point storing is unlocked: five 2nd lvl slots and one 1st lvl slot for 1 sp. Finally, I get an ASI to bump CHA to 20.
From here there'll be a pretty common sorcerer. I'll take Resilient (Con) on 11 lvl for Con saves and HP bump. I hope additional sorcery points will pay off slower leveling as a sorc.

How do I add more control to this build, especially on early levels?

[Man_Over_Game]

For control, there's two recommendations I would strongly suggest.

The more powerful option that requires level 3 warlock early on is Darkness + the invocation that grants you darkvision through magical darkness. Cast on your staff or whatever and it'll follow you. Cast it on a rock and you can easily move it. Cast it in the air and it creates an impenetrable black fog that will keep out any ranged combat while your team pounds on a single melee fighter. You can see everything they're doing as you shoot them through the darkness with advantage (since they can't see you) with your eldritch blasts. There's only 3 ways a player could see through magical darkness: a shadow sorcerer's own superdarkness, a gloom stalker ranger, or this invocation. Very few creatures can see through magical darkness. Your DM may hate you for this combo, though. It's difficult to DM around.

The more accessible option is to invest as a Sorcerer into Sleep. Just keep in mind that Sleep gets bad around level 5-ish and you'll want to swap it out for something else. Until then, it's your best friend.

You can also grab the sorcerer spell Frostbite, a great damage cantrip that is saved against CON and forces disadvantage on the enemy's next attack if it hits. It's like a better Vicious Mockery. You'd use it against mages, archers, and bosses.

[Citan]

tl;dr Eladrin celestial coffeesorc

I'm joining a Hoard of Dragon Queen campaign. Three players except me, half-elves Paladin, Ranger and human Fighter, so I'm taking a caster class with some healing. Our DM is very generous with stats, I've got 15, 16 and 17, any character can be good with high stats.
I'm staring with three levels of Warlock, then switching to Sorc. Urchin because backstory, skills: Arcana, Deception (Warlock), Perception (Elf), Stealth, Sleight of Hand (Urchin).
Progression:
1. I'm planning Cure Wounds from expanded spell list and Hex, there are also free cantrips, Light and Sacred Flame. Of course I'm taking Eldritch Blast and Minor Illusion.
2. Warlock's 1st level spells are kinda lame. Charm Person? Hellish Rebuke? Invocations here are Agonizing Blast and Repelling Blast as EB is main attack cantrip
3. Lesser restoration because Paladin's Lay hands may not be always available. Pact of Chain gives me sprite (not imp, the character is not evil), invisible stealthy creature that can open doors, steal or plant items and so on.
4. Switching to Dragon Sorcerer, it gives AC, Draconic language and hit points to match warlock's. Shield and Absorb Elements for better survivability. Cantrips are Friends, Prestidigitation, Mage Hand, and one more. Thunderclap? Shocking Grasp?
5. Burning Hands are poor man's Fireball. From here I get 8 additional 1st lvl spell slots per long rest: 4 hours of elf trance and 4 short rests. My DM is okay with that, at least for now.
6. Something for control: Web, Maximillian's Earthen Grasp, Phantasmal Force. Quickened and Twinned metamagic. From here I can shoot 4 Eldrich Blast rays per turn.
7. The most efficient sorcery point storing is unlocked: five 2nd lvl slots and one 1st lvl slot for 1 sp. Finally, I get an ASI to bump CHA to 20.
From here there'll be a pretty common sorcerer. I'll take Resilient (Con) on 11 lvl for Con saves and HP bump. I hope additional sorcery points will pay off slower leveling as a sorc.

How do I add more control to this build, especially on early levels?
Hi!

First of all, quick thing: I'd really pick Eldricht Frost (or whatever name is) instead of Agonizing Blast. This is a suggestion I make in general anyways, but for you who wants *control*, Agonizing Blast is a big waste of Invocation.
Especially since you will have only a +3 on one or two at most rays for a very long time.

Forcing the position of a creature by pushing it and reducing its speed is far, FAR more worth your time.
*Especially* since you plan on multiclassing.

For example, from your own Warlock, Guiding Bolt is decent to pick and maybe to keep, depending on your taste? At least Paladin will like it when trying to land a smite (spell).
Flaming Sphere will pair extremely well with EB's Invocations.
From Sorcerer, Earth Tremor is another great one synergy-wise: small enough AOE to manage limiting/avoiding friendly fire, prone effect (advantage on melee \o/) and difficult terrain.
*THIS* is a good use of a Quicken. And a better spell choice for you than Burning Hands imo (which requires to be close).
Later, Web that you quote is an evident pick: you can push enemies inside its area.
Then Sorcerer will get Stinking Cloud, Wall of Fire etc...

With your plan, there is not much you can do to get control though to be honest. Eldricht Blast invocations synergize best with lasting AOE, especially AOE creating difficult terrain, and most of these are Druid territory.
You could get Plant Growth for massive enemy movement control but it would require another Patron.
Or you could learn Blindness, which is non-concentration (good), scalable (good), but besides that does not offer synergy with EB and targets a usually strong save.

This apart, the one thing i'd change is picking Create Bonfire as one cantrip from Sorcerer: it's cheap way when you want to conserve slots to build damage upon pushing blast.
AND later you can learn Pyrotechnics: although, to get the same effect as a Fog Cloud it's much more costly (Create Bonfire, Quicken Pyrotechnics) this spell, being non-concentration, can be used to set up a "non-concentration Fog Cloud" as an opener before you use concentration spells. And it can double as a "mass one-round Blindness" for a much smaller cost than upcast Blindness, which is appreciable too. ;)


For control, there's two recommendations I would strongly suggest.

The more powerful option that requires level 3 warlock early on is Darkness + the invocation that grants you darkvision through magical darkness. Cast on your staff or whatever and it'll follow you. Cast it on a rock and you can easily move it. Cast it in the air and it creates an impenetrable black fog that will keep out any ranged combat while your team pounds on a single melee fighter. You can see everything they're doing as you shoot them through the darkness with advantage (since they can't see you) with your eldritch blasts. There's only 3 ways a player could see through magical darkness: a shadow sorcerer's own superdarkness, a gloom stalker ranger, or this invocation. Very few creatures can see through magical darkness. Your DM may hate you for this combo, though. It's difficult to DM around.

The more accessible option is to invest as a Sorcerer into Sleep. Just keep in mind that Sleep gets bad around level 5-ish and you'll want to swap it out for something else. Until then, it's your best friend.

You can also grab Frostbite, a great cantrip that is saved against CON and forces disadvantage on the enemy's next attack if it hits. It's like a better Vicious Mockery. You'd use it against mages, archers, and bosses.
I'll have to strongly, strongly disagree on first point of this post, and somewhat disagree with the rest.
1. Darkness+Devil's Sight: yeah, it's a powerful combo, but really doesn't fit a party, especially that one. Either you keep it on you while using EB, meaning you basically protect yourself (\o/) or you put it on the frontline, bothering enemies *and* allies.
Plus it eats your concentration. Really not worthy for a multiclass character in a party of mainly melee people. Because you are good at dealing damage, but that's mostly it (you can move it to protect them but as said it also reduce their offense). And dealing damage is something they all are pretty good at already.

Now with that said, provided you can get a familiar (yours or another) you could use Darkness "alone" to good use: cast on rock, ask familiar to wield it, then order it to go over enemies (or close-by) and keep them inside by pushing them back.

2. Sleep: agreed on that, as you can still use it for a while after it lost interest in combat, to ease any kind of spying/sneaking around.
But Sorcerer has so many good spells available, and so few known...
Especially when considering EB's Invocations. Confer above.

3. Frostbite: situationally useful against some casters or archers, but the mediocre range makes it more dangerous to use than Eldricht Blast + Invocations.

[Dalebert]

I thought the whole idea of a coffeelock was a sorlock who has the no-sleep invocation so they can take 8 short rests and recover a ton of sorcery points. Alternatively an elf who long rests in 4 hours and then takes 4 short rests.

[Man_Over_Game]

Didn't Sage Advice state that the Elven sleep/trance doesn't reduce the time of a Long Rest, but it does make it so that the elf can spend the extra time doing light activities (like keeping watch, reading, knitting)?

[ErHo]

I love seeing these builds!

Youre right about the Elves, you'll need the Moon pact to stay up indefinitely, or scrap the Elf and go Warforged

[Derpaligtr]

Didn't Sage Advice state that the Elven sleep/trance doesn't reduce the time of a Long Rest, but it does make it so that the elf can spend the extra time doing light activities (like keeping watch, reading, knitting)?

Yeah, that's how it has worked for a long time now.

[Dalebert]

Didn't Sage Advice state that the Elven sleep/trance doesn't reduce the time of a Long Rest, but it does make it so that the elf can spend the extra time doing light activities (like keeping watch, reading, knitting)?

They did but it's one of the few things that they actually changed their guidance on later. My understanding is elves actually do get a full rest in four hours which is completely in line with the description of the ability as opposed to the weird sage advice.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/i-dont-understand-the-change-to-elf-trance-why-do-they-suddenly-no-longer-need-to-finish-the-8-hours/

[Derpaligtr]

They did but it's one of the few things that they actually changed their guidance on later. My understanding is elves actually do get a full rest in four hours which is completely in line with the description of the ability as opposed to the weird sage advice.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/09/01/i-dont-understand-the-change-to-elf-trance-why-do-they-suddenly-no-longer-need-to-finish-the-8-hours/

Trance

Elves don’t need to sleep. Instead, they meditate deeply, remaining semiconscious, for 4 hours a day. (The Common word for such meditation is “trance.”) While meditating, you can dream after a fashion; such dreams are actually mental exercises that have become reflexive through years of practice. After resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.


And

Long Rest

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting spells, or similar adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.

At the end of a long rest, a character regains all lost hit points. The character also regains spent Hit Dice, up to a number of dice equal to half of the character’s total number of them (minimum of one die). For example, if a character has eight Hit Dice, he or she can regain four spent Hit Dice upon finishing a long rest.

A character can’t benefit from more than one long rest in a 24-hour period, and a character must have at least 1 hit point at the start of the rest to gain its benefits.


====

Trance doesn't give you a long rest. Just 8 hours of sleep in 4 hours.

You still need to perform 8 hours to get a full full rest. A long rest is 8 hours of sleep or 6 hours of sleep and 2 hours of downtime. In the xase of the elf, it would be 4 hours of sleep and 4 hours of downtime.

The Elf would still need to fill that extra time with light activities as a long rest is always 8 hours.

The benifit is that you get your sleep for the long rest out of the way and can spend downtime doing other light work.

****

Sage Advice boiled down to "ask your DM", like many times when they want to take the lazy/easy way out.

[Lord Bushbaby]

Best coffeelock is no coffeelock.

They're just generally annoying to manage as a DM, and the DM in question may not like it. On top of this, the rest of your party will still need long rests for their stuff, and you will get exhaustion points without long resting for a while.

[Dalebert]

Sage Advice boiled down to "ask your DM", like many times when they want to take the lazy/easy way out.

I'm having trouble finding the newer tweet that countered his earlier tweet. This response to it was all I could find quickly. The point is that no one questioned that elves got a long rest in just four hours until he posted that earlier tweet because the original wording is unambiguous:

[QUOTE=Derpaligtr;23336084]TranceAfter resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.[/B]

Trance is an exception to the general rule about long resting. How many times have you heard Crawford talk about exceptions to general rules? It specifically says trancing for 4 hours gets you the same benefit as 8 hours of sleeping, and 8 hours of sleeping clearly gets you the benefits of a long rest per the long rest rules. There is no need to continue resting for 4 more hours.

[Derpaligtr]

I'm having trouble finding the newer tweet that countered his earlier tweet. This response to it was all I could find quickly. The point is that no one questioned that elves got a long rest in just four hours until he posted that earlier tweet because the original wording is unambiguous:


TranceAfter resting in this way, you gain the same benefit that a human does from 8 hours of sleep.[/B]

Trance is an exception to the general rule about long resting. How many times have you heard Crawford talk about exceptions to general rules? It specifically says trancing for 4 hours gets you the same benefit as 8 hours of sleeping, and 8 hours of sleeping clearly gets you the benefits of a long rest per the long rest rules. There is no need to continue resting for 4 more hours.


Sleep =/= long rest.

8 hours of downtime = long rest.

Slight differenve but still a difference. If the elf trait mentioned long rest, I would agree, but it doesn't.

A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity.

Sleeping isn't the key factor for a long rest. 8 hours of downtime is.

A human can sleep for 3 hours and just lay around for 5 and get the benefit of a long rest.

The only penalty that is mentioned about sleep is that a DM can request a Con Save if they try to "go without sleep". Unless I'm missing something from thr DMG.

The benefit for trance is that they won't ever require that Con save if they trance for 4 hours.

This debate comea up in every edition of D&D and the answer is the same each time, funny enough.

[AvatarVecna]

There is a correct and incorrect way to coffeelock. But both are wrong, for trying at all in the first place. As such, while there is a correct way to coffeelock, there is no right way to do it. :smalltongue:

[Dalebert]

Sleep =/= long rest.

Correct but sleeping for 8 hours unambiguously is a long rest and trancing 4 hours gives the same mechanical benefits of not just sleeping, bit specifically sleeping for "8 hours".

[Man_Over_Game]

Correct but sleeping for 8 hours unambiguously is a long rest and trancing 4 hours gives the same mechanical benefits of not just sleeping, bit specifically sleeping for "8 hours".

The Sage Advice does cover something important about that definition of the Trance ability.

If you make it so that Elves can sleep in half the time, you are creating a world where Elves are getting a 20 hour work day rather than everyone else's 16 hour work days. Plan on a world where your Elves can spend 25% more time influencing the world, and basically be 25% better than everyone else.

Compare this to DnD's most memorable and staple setting, The Forgotten Realms. Are Elves 25% better than everyone else? Considering most mortal-to-god conversions come from Humans, and most civilizations have a higher population of Humans, I'd be inclined to say this is not true.

Sage Advice says the four hour rest might be true in a world where that makes sense, but that doesn't make sense in most published settings, and most campaigns are built, at least slightly, around these settings.

The main key point is that the DM needs to decide if Elves are better. If they are not explicitly better than everyone else on that world, then an 8-hour rest, with 4 hours in trance, is the most suitable way to go.


[Edit]
Whoops, got way off topic there. OP, don't be a douche, just ask your DM what he's cool with. People like me can babble on for hours, or your DM can give you a 5 minute decision.

[Reth]

Plan on a world where your Elves can spend 25% more time influencing the world, and basically be 25% better than everyone else. .

Elves are normally kind of lazy-ish plus they have really long lives so they're not in a rush to get everything done right now like some of the shorter lived races are. It's why you can have a 1st level 20 year old Human fighter or wizard be just as good as a 1st level 100 year old elf.

[Lunali]

The Sage Advice does cover something important about that definition of the Trance ability.

If you make it so that Elves can sleep in half the time, you are creating a world where Elves are getting a 20 hour work day rather than everyone else's 16 hour work days. Plan on a world where your Elves can spend 25% more time influencing the world, and basically be 25% better than everyone else.

Compare this to DnD's most memorable and staple setting, The Forgotten Realms. Are Elves 25% better than everyone else? Considering most mortal-to-god conversions come from Humans, and most civilizations have a higher population of Humans, I'd be inclined to say this is not true.

Sage Advice says the four hour rest might be true in a world where that makes sense, but that doesn't make sense in most published settings, and most campaigns are built, at least slightly, around these settings.

The main key point is that the DM needs to decide if Elves are better. If they are not explicitly better than everyone else on that world, then an 8-hour rest, with 4 hours in trance, is the most suitable way to go.


[Edit]
Whoops, got way off topic there. OP, don't be a douche, just ask your DM what he's cool with. People like me can babble on for hours, or your DM can give you a 5 minute decision.

Considering that even without this elves get roughly 10x as long as adulthood to influence the world as a human does, I think 25% is a drop in the bucket. Also, elves have to sleep 4 hours to the humans' 6, not 8, since anyone can take 2 hours on watch with no ill effects.

In the games I've played, elves need 6 hours long rest, no more than 2 of which can be spent on watch, with two or more elves, this usually means staggering long rests so someone watches for 4 hours, 2 of which are part of their rest, then switches off resulting in an 8hr rest with two watches.