Creating a non-irritating sorlock

[Jaryn]

Hey all, much as the title says, I'm contemplating trying to create a sorlock that doesn't make people grind their teeth. So I'm not going to take Aspect of the Moon, and will be taking the same rests as everyone else, for a start.

What else do I have to watch out for that would make the character balanced to play with? Should I avoid taking Quicken? Only use Pact Magic slots to cast spells known from the Warlock list?

I don't want to cripple myself accidentally but I very much want it to be a fun character that other players enjoy being at the table with... Any advice would be much appreciated!

[nickl_2000]

-Not Coffeelocking is a great way to start (which you already said).
-Avoid things that hamstring the rest of the party, i.e. don't cast darkness in cases where the rest of the party is now useless.
-Know the play style of others and look to boost them. Don't push bad guys away from the tank who can't move quickly enough to get to someone
-Look at buffs for others (twinned haste for example).


As long as you keep it a team game and keep others in mind with your actions you should be fine.

[Dork_Forge]

You don't really need to do most of what you suggest, as long as you're not pushing to take a short rest after every encounter you'll be just fine. What are the rest of the group? If there's a Monk in the party then you'll likely be taking a couple short rests a day anyway, just don't try and spam short rests and there's nothing to be annoying with.

[Iados]

In both your real life and your fantasy life, you should never dim your own light.* Play what you like. Don't apologize for quickening eldritch blasts; it will often be an optimal decision for your character in combat. A sorlock forgoing quicken is like a paladin refusing to use smites; sure, you can do it, but why play a class if you don't want to use one of its chief features?

Coffeelocking is the only sorlock ability that is genuinely game-breaking (and no GM worth their salt should allow it in a game), and since you won't take Aspect of the Moon, you should be all set. If you're worried about dealing too much damage, don't. That's the whole point of the build. And besides, there are far more powerful combos (*cough* nuclear wizard *cough) out there.


*Unless you're playing a rogue; then dim it so you can hide!

[kazaryu]

Hey all, much as the title says, I'm contemplating trying to create a sorlock that doesn't make people grind their teeth. So I'm not going to take Aspect of the Moon, and will be taking the same rests as everyone else, for a start.

What else do I have to watch out for that would make the character balanced to play with? Should I avoid taking Quicken? Only use Pact Magic slots to cast spells known from the Warlock list?

I don't want to cripple myself accidentally but I very much want it to be a fun character that other players enjoy being at the table with... Any advice would be much appreciated!

i agree generally with the rest of the thread, the only thing thats *annoying* about sorlock is coffeelocking. (that is spamming short rests in order to convert free warlock spell slots into sorcery points). avoid doing that and you should be golden. if people complain, then they're complaining because they've heard coffelocks are broken, not because they have any real argument to support why. stay calm and explain to them why you think its ok. (i.e. you're not planning on trying to cheese more sorcery points). if that doesn't work and you can't convince them to let you try and see if *they* find it unfun....then you're probably not in a terribly reasonable group.

i can't stress enough though, coffeelock has a stigma, be ready to explain that you're not playing a coffeelock.

[Galithar]

A great and fun way to make sure you don't outshine anyone is find different things to out your build into that are fun for YOU.

What I've done before was
1. Even split (You don't have powerful spells but you cast low level ones all day. This is my LEAST recommended action because if you do it wrong, or your party optimizes you'll be the one left behind)
1a. Don't do a perfectly optimized build. Maybe take an extra Warlock level to get to 3 or 4 instead if JUST getting Agonizing Blast and ducking.
1b. If others optimize as well or better the you it's probably safe to ignore the above without overshadowing anyone.
2. Lots of buffs to the party. Twinned Haste, Greater Invisibility, Bless (Divine Soul) makes whatever you do seem more beneficial to the party. Even if you take half of the buff for yourself.
3. "Sub-optimal" but effective actions. IE enemy is 30 feet away and you know they move 30 feet. Twinned Ray of Frost deals less damage then Quickening Eldritch Blasts but keeps 2 (or 3 if you twin AND quicken) from getting in range for melee. Obviously this is super situational, but LOOK for things like this you can do.
4. Focus on out if combat. Mask of Many Faces + Actor + Misty Images + 20 CHA + Subtle Suggestion = Social God that only Bards can really begin to compete with.
5. DO NOT be some whiny edgelord emo character. Have a
character personality more appealing than an Ogre who got his nuts stepped on by a dragon.


Most of these apply to building any character you don't want to annoy or overshadow your party. Only point 1 is really exclusive to a Sorlock. A hyper optimized* straight Paladin in a group of low optimization players is going to feel just a wrong as an overly optimized Sorlock.

*I use hyper optimized in relation to the rest of the group. Not to mean there is a bad level if optimization.

[Jaryn]

Brilliant, thank you for all the tips! There will definitely be a few party buffs flying around to keep the melee characters happy, and a lot of out of combat stuff 🙂

[Hail Tempus]

Why would other party members object to Quicken? Warlocks and sorcerers can be many things, but damage dealing is one the things they're good at. What party member gets upset when another party member does a lot of damage?

[Man_Over_Game]

I'd just ask your DM if you could swap out Divine Smite for something else (Maybe Advantage on Concentration Spells that only affect 1 creature?). Honestly, I wouldn't care so much about Sorcerer/Paladin/Warlock combos if they didn't have a superefficient way of dumping their spellslots that has no risk. It also happens to be strictly damage, which is the most generic way you could be contributing.

If a Sorlock was limited to using Twin-Booming Blade, or Shield, or using Spell Smites instead of Divine Smite, I would be 100% fine with the overdone Sorlock. Nobody cares if you're crippling the enemy or dodging attacks, but people get frustrated when you start outdamaging the team AND still doing those things.

[Teaguethebean]

I think the biggest thing is making a convincing narrative. Mainly because the odds of someone both having made a Pact with a powerful creature and having innate magical powers feels really fake without a good narrative. Some good ways of running it is a servant of Lolth (Hexblade/ Celestial Warlock Shadow/Divine sorcerer) Same can be played out convincingly for a servant of the Raven Queen, Eilistraee, and several others I can't think of at the moment.

[Teaguethebean]

Why would other party members object to Quicken? Warlocks and sorcerers can be many things, but damage dealing is one the things they're good at. What party member gets upset when another party member does a lot of damage?

Usually a human fighter that has put nothing into damage beyond the dueling fighting style feeling they should do the most damage by virtue of being a fighter.

[stoutstien]

Usually a human fighter that has put nothing into damage beyond the dueling fighting style feeling they should do the most damage by virtue of being a fighter.

They still will by nature of not delaying ASI or feats. The Pam V human is still beating the score/warlock in flat damage most of a resource cycle.

[Teaguethebean]

They still will by nature of not delaying ASI or feats. The Pam V human is still beating the score/warlock in flat damage most of a resource cycle.

Agreed but all I was saying is the type of people who will complain are the type that doesn't do anything to actually raise damage output.

[Keravath]

Avoid bending the rules a la coffeelock. Some DMs won't let you do it anyway.

Other than that, there isn't much special about a sorlock. They only have so many sorcery points. If they use the spell slots for spells they don't have so many sorcery points. All the meta magics, especially twin and quicken use lots of sorcery points.

In the mid levels, say 5-9, a sorlock won't typically have enough points to quicken eldritch blast on a regular basis and it only has two beams at that point anyway. I have a level 9 character 1 fighter/2 warlock/6 sorcerer. His third level spells are fireball and haste. The last couple of encounters, I twin haste onto the melee attackers and do ranged support with eldritch blast. I could burn second level slots for sorcery points for quicken as a bonus action and fire off a quickened eldritch blast every second turn ... but only for three rounds, at which point I am out of second level slots. The problem with that is that I burn all the long rest resources in one fight and have nothing left for the next one.

Instead, I just use EB on the turns when I am concentrating on haste. If we need it, I might cast fireball, if there is a caster or other specific high value target then I may quicken EB to try and take them down faster but monsters have 100+ hit points in many cases so one extra EB may not make much difference.

Honestly, the sharpshooter ranger in the party is far outdamaging anyone else including me :)

At higher levels, say 12-16, a single 6th level spell slot can be converted to three rounds of quickened EB, each of which has 3 beams. It is more efficient at that level though it does burn a useful slot. However, by that point everyone else also has tricks to do damage and the sharpshooter/xbow expert ranger is still likely to be outdamaging the sorlock.

In general, sorlocks are no more irritating than any other ranged damage attacker at least until level 11 so I wouldn't worry about it.

P.S. As a 9th character level dragon sorcerer (fire), there is a good chance that I will twin firebolt for 2x(2d10+5) damage and 1 sorcery point rather than quicken eldritch blast for 4*(d10+5) ... eldritch blast is a bit more damage but if there are multiple good targets then the firebolt is more resource efficient.

[Man_Over_Game]

Agreed but all I was saying is the type of people who will complain are the type that doesn't do anything to actually raise damage output.

I think a big factor of the concern is that, while Sorcerer/Paladin/Warlock combos can certainly expend a lot of resources into damage, it is not a permanent choice. You get cantrips, spells, a focus on one of the best attributes in terms of skill-usage.

SorLockAdoodles can do pretty much anything they want to that doesn't involve a Dexterity check, they just choose to usually spend it all towards damage. They can even heal, if they really felt like it.

Compare that to a Fighter, who can probably get about 20% more damage than the SorLockAdoodle....and that's about it. The Fighter will never be able to "opt out" of their damage, as it's the only thing they'll be capable of contributing.

How much max damage the SorLockAdoodle can do isn't really the problem. The problem is that they're more than that.

[stoutstien]

Agreed but all I was saying is the type of people who will complain are the type that doesn't do anything to actually raise damage output.

Ah. Difference between a complaint based on conjecture vs a complaint based on mismatched PC power levels.

[MaxWilson]

-Not Coffeelocking is a great way to start (which you already said).

Did the OP say that? I've seen some people use "Coffeelock" to refer to anyone who ever converts warlock slots over successive short rests to sorcery points. Others use it only to mean Java Do'Urden builds where you do that literally for days at a time--but that kind of Coffeelocking is purely theoretical IME. I've never seen a player even desire to spend weeks at a time building up hundreds of spell slots, and if you're just charging up 24 hours' or so of spell slots, you don't need Aspect of the Moon anyway.

A bog-standard warlock 2/sorc X can still get 48 sorcery points = 6 extra 5th level slots + 2 extra 1st level slots in 24 hours of prep time, which is short enough that I can imagine someone actually doing it before an important mission. I can't imagine anyone ever actually spending a solid month to build up 180 5th level slots and 60 1st level slots, because at that point spell slots have long ceased to be your limiting factor in any realistic mission.

[Joe the Rat]

Don't add Fighter2 for Action Surge.

That's too much beam spam for most people.

[kazaryu]

Did the OP say that? I've seen some people use "Coffeelock" to refer to anyone who ever converts warlock slots over successive short rests to sorcery points. Others use it only to mean Java Do'Urden builds where you do that literally for days at a time--but that kind of Coffeelocking is purely theoretical IME. I've never seen a player even desire to spend weeks at a time building up hundreds of spell slots, and if you're just charging up 24 hours' or so of spell slots, you don't need Aspect of the Moon anyway.

A bog-standard warlock 2/sorc X can still get 48 sorcery points = 6 extra 5th level slots + 2 extra 1st level slots in 24 hours of prep time, which is short enough that I can imagine someone actually doing it before an important mission. I can't imagine anyone ever actually spending a solid month to build up 180 5th level slots and 60 1st level slots, because at that point spell slots have long ceased to be your limiting factor in any realistic mission.

i've never seen anyone refer to coffeelocking as weeks/months of prep. at most multiple days. but as you point out, thats fairly unnecesary. coffeelocking is, in my experience, the process of cheesing yourself to more sorcery points that you should be able to have by sacrificing free spell slots from a warlock. also keep in mind, its impossible to have more than 19 sorcery points as a sorlock. as your pool of sorcery points is capped at your sorcerer level. (technically its capped by the table in the sorcerer page, but that always matches sorcerer level so...). so like, even doing what you describe would be considered coffeelocking, and should be avoided if you wanna avoid the stigma surrounding sorlocks.

[Flashkannon]

I think the biggest thing is making a convincing narrative. Mainly because the odds of someone both having made a Pact with a powerful creature and having innate magical powers feels really fake without a good narrative. Some good ways of running it is a servant of Lolth (Hexblade/ Celestial Warlock Shadow/Divine sorcerer) Same can be played out convincingly for a servant of the Raven Queen, Eilistraee, and several others I can't think of at the moment.
I've seen that idea be put to good use; the being with whom you share a bloodline (or whose favored soul you are) comes down and gives you a little warlock power to sprinkle on the top, though note, this could work just as easily with your ancient dragongrandad :smallbiggrin:


I think a big factor of the concern is that, while Sorcerer/Paladin/Warlock combos can certainly expend a lot of resources into damage, it is not a permanent choice. You get cantrips, spells, a focus on one of the best attributes in terms of skill-usage.

SorLockAdoodles can do pretty much anything they want to that doesn't involve a Dexterity check, they just choose to usually spend it all towards damage. They can even heal, if they really felt like it.

Compare that to a Fighter, who can probably get about 20% more damage than the SorLockAdoodle....and that's about it. The Fighter will never be able to "opt out" of their damage, as it's the only thing they'll be capable of contributing.

How much max damage the SorLockAdoodle can do isn't really the problem. The problem is that they're more than that.

Haha, yeah. I run into that with the (non-obnoxious) Sorlock in my campaign. If I hadn't buffed everyone else a little (with items, mostly), they'd have the distinction of being able to do 4d10+20 damage at an extreme range in the least resisted damage type on top of also being a Whole Dang Sorcerer. And also having two levels of Warlock abilities. It helps that in my group, they're the closest thing to a healer (Barbarian, Sorlock, Wizard, (NPC) Fighter), with the Divine Soul archetype, so they have to sink a lot of their spell picks and casts into things like healing and revival.

So general advice? In addition to being a sorlock, pick a niche that you build your spell picks around. Give yourself a Role and work on it. Have a thing you do that nobody else does, preferably in a support function.

[BloodSnake'sCha]

A build doesn't make a character irritating. A player make a character irritating.

Just don't be that guy.

Be a good guy and make sure everyone have good time.

The build is irrelevant.

[Warlush]

Subtle spell + twin spell + extra low level slots + extra cantrips + starting with CON saves + shadow or draconic or divine soul + celestial or fiend synergy is so much awesome you really don't need any cheese. Just a solid build that fills in gaps and can do unique things.

I like the sorc 1 / lock 1-5 / sorc 2-3 / lock 6-12. (Usually don't play past 15 or 16)

Works really amazing with the chain or tome pacts.

Tons of utility, support, buffing, debuffing, blasting, and there are several viable combos. None of which include cheesing short rests and rolling 8 attacks every turn.

Also... don't be a Hexblade.

Extra points if you play an Undying Warlock + Celestial with plausible backstory.

[Monster Manuel]

So general advice? In addition to being a sorlock, pick a niche that you build your spell picks around. Give yourself a Role and work on it. Have a thing you do that nobody else does, preferably in a support function.

This worked well for me. I played up that I was a trickstery mind-mage/illusionist sort of character. Liberal use of subtle charms and minor illusions to support cockamamie heist schemes and cons, falling back on eldritch blastery only when things went horribly wrong. Unambiguously and unanimously the party Face. We were well into level 5 before anyone said "wait a minute...you're playing a coffeelock, aren't you?" And I wasn't, really, because I had never actually coffeelocked, despite the fact that I could have, so no one cared.

[kazaryu]

A build doesn't make a character irritating. A player make a character irritating.

Just don't be that guy.

Be a good guy and make sure everyone have good time.

The build is irrelevant.

nope, coffeelocks are annoying because of the inherent cheese.

or more specifically, there are things that are purely mechanical that can make playing with a coffeelock annoying. even if the player themselves isn't terribly intrusive or annoying. its similar to having an optimizer in a group of people with non-optimized characters, except worse because its not even optimization, its straight up cheese.

[Man_Over_Game]

nope, coffeelocks are annoying because of the inherent cheese.

or more specifically, there are things that are purely mechanical that can make playing with a coffeelock annoying. even if the player themselves isn't terribly intrusive or annoying. its similar to having an optimizer in a group of people with non-optimized characters, except worse because its not even optimization, its straight up cheese.

The elements of a CoffeeLock are:


Sorcerer can convert Spell Slots into Sorcery Points, and back to Spell Slots.
There is no inherent limit to how many Sorcery Points Spell Slots you can have.

x


Warlocks regain Spell Slots per Short Rest.
Warlock Spell Slots are always at the Warlock's maximum caster level

+


Eldritch Blast can be enhanced via Invocations, Darkness + Eldritch Sight, Hex, and Hexblade features

x


Eldritch Blast can be Quickened by Sorcerer (causing it to double each turn)



Make any one of those factors irrelevant, and half of the entire Coffeelock formula ceases to function.

For example, putting a cap on Sorcery Points Spell Slots(make it cap to your Sorcerer table) will make most people content. Alternatively, make it so that non-Sorcerer spell slots that are converted into Sorcery Points are worth 1 less SP than they normally would be.

Or, as a player, you just don't do those things. If a Player just had Warlock + Sorcerer levels, and didn't abuse Eldritch Blast or Sorcery Points, what's the worst that they could do?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

The elements of a CoffeeLock are:


Sorcerer can convert Spell Slots into Sorcery Points.
There is no inherent limit to Sorcery Points.

x


Warlocks regain Spell Slots per Short Rest.
Warlock Spell Slots are always at the Warlock's maximum caster level

+


Eldritch Blast can be enhanced via Invocations, Darkness + Eldritch Sight, Hex, and Hexblade features

x


Eldritch Blast can be Quickened by Sorcerer (causing it to double each turn)



Make any one of those factors irrelevant, and half of the entire Coffeelock formula ceases to function.

For example, putting a cap on Sorcery Points (make it equal to your Sorcerer level) will make most people content. Alternatively, make it so that non-Sorcerer spell slots that are converted into Sorcery Points are worth 1 less SP than they normally would be.

Or, as a player, you just don't do those things. If a Player just had Warlock + Sorcerer levels, and didn't abuse Eldritch Blast or Sorcery Points, what's the worst that they could do?

Sorcery Points
You have 2 sorcery points, and you gain more as you reach higher levels, as shown in the Sorcery Points column of the Sorcerer table. You can never have more sorcery points than shown on the table for your level. You regain all spent sorcery points when you finish a long rest.


I introduce a limit.
The thing you hhve no limit is the number of spell slots.

Quick EB is something you can duplicate with a magic item(illusionist brecers if I remember right).

[Man_Over_Game]

I introduce a limit.
The thing you hhve no limit is the number of spell slots.

Ah, right, sorry.

[XmonkTad]

i've never seen anyone refer to coffeelocking as weeks/months of prep. at most multiple days. but as you point out, thats fairly unnecesary. coffeelocking is, in my experience, the process of cheesing yourself to more sorcery points that you should be able to have by sacrificing free spell slots from a warlock. also keep in mind, its impossible to have more than 19 sorcery points as a sorlock. as your pool of sorcery points is capped at your sorcerer level. (technically its capped by the table in the sorcerer page, but that always matches sorcerer level so...). so like, even doing what you describe would be considered coffeelocking, and should be avoided if you wanna avoid the stigma surrounding sorlocks.

I mean, I've certainly said that a true coffeelock could definitely spend weeks/months gathering spell slots to turn into an inexhaustible font of arcane/eldrich energy. The devs really seem to have scraped that, and introduced a lot of rules like "4 hours of trance for an elf counts as a long rest" and "you'll take exhaustion if you don't long rest, regardless of need to sleep" and such. I don't advocate trying it in game (unless it's a specific type of game where that kind of thing is encouraged), but the rules support such weird interactions.

The exhaustion-free method:
1) Elf takes long rest
2) Elf spends 4 remaining hours of party's long rest taking 4 short rests
3) Convert warlock spells to sorc points to sorc spell slots
I've always called this "Decaf coffeelock" which helps contrast it with the method of using Greater Restoration to gather boatloads of spell slots. Although that method wastes diamonds in the casting of GR, and so I've seen it called "cocaine-lock".

But to OP's point, making a non-coffelock sorclock is the default. If you want to be non-irritating, make sure that you roll your attacks and damage efficiently for your eldrich blasts (because if you quicken them that's a lot of rolling). And if you want to be balanced, just don't abuse short rests and your power will be reasonable.