What build should have been good, but wasn't?

[tokek]

Convert all your SP into slots, and never take a long rest. That's the cheese. I don't really think it's all that bad, tbh, but some folks get their panties in a twist thinking about nigh unlimited MMs or something... (like, the Wizard was doing that 3 levels ago /shrug)

A load more 1st thru 5th level slots but at the expense of not taking a LR to refresh all the slots of level 6 and up?

I'll pass on that thanks. I mean it has a niche but I would not build a sorcerer towards that as a capstone. High level spells are too important.

[Theodoxus]

I stopped playing my shepherd druid for this very reason around tier 3/4 play. I felt guilty about making every fight boring for the others players and solving practically every problem with the number of tools I was given.

Should have had everyone play in your Druid Grove... if everyone is a Shepherd Druid then everyone is bored! (or no one is bored... I don't know how that works - I've honestly never looked at the Shepherd, so I'm not sure what they can do that just ends encounters... but it seems like at the very least, everyone would get a crack at ending their own encounter... spreading the love, so to speak.)

A load more 1st thru 5th level slots but at the expense of not taking a LR to refresh all the slots of level 6 and up?

I'll pass on that thanks. I mean it has a niche but I would not build a sorcerer towards that as a capstone. High level spells are too important.

That's the primary reason I don't think it's a big deal on a pure Sorcerer. You're missing out on your big guns. On a Sorlock, it's a bit messier, since it's coming online as soon as your multiclass and have 2 levels of Sorcerer. Though the invocation that makes it pretty DM proof requires being a Tomelock, so you're looking at 5th level minimum, and thus you're missing out on your big control and/or blasts that come online otherwise. Of course, there's also the issue that converting slots to SP is a losing proposition. While it's nice that pact slots auto level, so at 3rd level, you're getting 2 points per slot, its still not great; swapping a 2nd level pact slot for a 1st level sorcerer slot...

[diplomancer]

To me, coffee lock relies on a particular warlock invocation. (That's the cheese I refer to)>
The level 20 Sorc ability seems fine to me.

Not really. There are races that don't need sleep. And there is Greater Restoration (even its monetary cost is basically a rounding error by 20th level).

The main problem, as has been pointed out, are the higher level spells. But you don't necessarily lose out on them. With a couple of days of downtime you have all you want/need. Even if you don't have that time, just being a race that needs less hours for a Long Rest already gives you quite a few extra slots in the morning. And you can convert slots back into metamagic, giving you A LOT of metamagic points that you can use to turbo up your spells.

[Dr.Samurai]

But you can never have more points than your level right? So this is more about using them willy nilly and regaining them every short rest?

[Psyren]

Coffeelocks dates from before Xanathar's (which adds a rule where skipping a long rest means you do a Con check and get exhausted if you failed), where peoples argued that by RAW, doing successive shorts rest should be enough to avoid any kind of exhaustion.

[All of that mixed with the common misunderstanding about what coffee does: you can't compensate for bad sleep with coffee without some serious health issues down the line.]

Even after that rule, Aspect of the Moon specifically states that you don't need sleep, which would remove any of the negative consequences from not sleeping.

[diplomancer]

But you can never have more points than your level right? So this is more about using them willy nilly and regaining them every short rest?

You can never have more sorcery points than your level, but you can have more slots than your level table allows for. And those slots can be converted back to SPs. Sure, there is some loss when you do that, but you still accumulate enough new slots to make the capstone more powerful than it appears at first glance.

[Dr.Samurai]

You can never have more sorcery points than your level, but you can have more slots than your level table allows for. And those slots can be converted back to SPs. Sure, there is some loss when you do that, but you still accumulate enough new slots to make the capstone more powerful than it appears at first glance.

Ah, I see. So you accumulate spell slots, which you can then convert to sorcery points as needed. Interesting.

[Dork_Forge]

I’m sorry, I am not trying to make this personal, but the post I am quoting of yours I find quite lacking.

People hand wave HD size differences and say they don't matter at all. I disagree, they do have an impact. I'm not saying it's 'zomg the biggest thing evaz' I'm saying the impact is noticeable and not the hand wave people give it.

Of course a D10 class can have more HP than a D8 class…that is proof of nothing of importance.

Yup and the point is that lower HD classes have a relative HP deficit comparatively because of that, they can catch up by spending resources, making investments, or using abilities. But the point is they have to do that to catch up to the higher HD class just existing.

The Aid spell, THP, even the lowly Blade Ward Cantrip, are effective ways for D8 HD classes to bridge the hit point chasm and reach parity to the d10 average HP baseline.

At no point did I say that the gap could not be closed, nor that it couldn't be closed easily. The point has always been that the gap can/does matter and that they have to catch up at all.

All I'm doing is acknowledging an intentional balancing point between classes. Just like how martials get armor profs/formulas and the Wizard/Sorcerer get Mage Armor and Shield to make up the difference.

Are you contending D8 classes just die at higher tiers?

At no point did I say anything resembling that or intend it either.

Seems like you are picking nits

That's the nature of most discourse on a very specific game mechanic in a niche forum for said game.

[Dr.Samurai]

Is there a way to delineate the benefits of a bigger hit die spent during a short rest over the course of an adventuring day, taking into account as well that adventurers recover only half their hit dice with a long rest?

It seems that larger hit dice would be an advantage, but I'm not a math guy.

[elyktsorb]

The big problem with spore druid is a conceptual one. Why is the guy based on molds and fungus supposed to be a tanky melee fighter in the first place? It's not hard to break a mushroom or toadstool, and where fungus is dangerous at all it's through poison and infection. "Spores" are meant to drift through the wind to spread the fungus at range. Spores druid is so obviously a back line status ailment concept, nothing about it says tanky front line fighter, no wonder the devs could pull together enough effective & thematic subclass features to make it work. From the very first ideas spores druid was trying to force a square peg through a round hole. Easily my least favorite subclass for wasting a good concept.

Adding onto the incoherent concept design, Spore Druid's abilities all feel like they have absolutely no cohesion between each of them barring the last one.

2nd Level you get temp hp, a melee attack buff, and the ability to use your reaction to deal miniscule damage at a range of 10ft. Literally everything about these abilities screams frontline.

6th Level, you get the ability to reanimate people/beasts that die within 10ft of you into a zombie with 1 hit point. I quite honestly have no clue what this ability is supposed to do for you mechanically. I don't know what you would do with a maximum of 5 1hp zombies per long rest that only stay alive for an hour. Sure, I can think of some utility uses, but those are minor at best. In combat, they will take 1 hit at best, probably just get ignored altogether though. And you have to be 10ft from the target when it dies, so this also means you usually need to be on the frontline for it to work.

10th Level, you get the ability to use your halo of spores like a ranged aoe trap at a distance of 30ft (though you can move farther than that once you put it down). This doesn't synergize with the above 2 abilities in the slightest, and is a bit crap in terms of an ability. This should just be added onto your 2nd lvl ability where it says 'at tenth level you can throw these at range' and then give you an actual ability.

14th Level is fungal body, you can't be blinded, deafened, frightened, or poisoned, and any critical hit against you counts as a normal hit instead, unless you're incapacitated. Let's actually dissect that.

How often is being blinded or deafened an actual concern? After all your vision can still be obscured, it doesn't allow you to see through magical darkness or anything. And quite honestly I've never been deafened once in my entire time playing 5e. Frightened? Well that's fine at least. But poisoned? This is just the poison status condition by the way, this isn't immunity to poison like the monk has, you still take poison damage, you just can't be poisoned. Heck, land druids get outright immunity to poison and disease at level 10.
As for not being able to be crit? I mean, yay? It's nice but it sucks that it turns off if your stunned, paralyzed, or sleeping. Crits are already not that reliable to get, but your going to take away that protection in the one instance where they are guaranteed?

This is a smattering of mediocre protection for a 14th level ability.


I wouldn't say it's like forcing a square peg through a round hole. But more like one of your pegs is a factory defect and just happens to fit in the semi-circle hole.