One edge case I could come up with are spells like Wall of Force that have 10 minute timers.
If you’ve trapped someone with a concentration spell that lasts for 10 minutes you can utilize those 10 minutes to give your companions a short rest while you contain them.
Oddly this spell would be more useful in real life than in D&D.
But yeah, this is only useful when you're tapped out, needing a rest in an otherwise dangerous place or with very limited time - which are very "specific" situations and may not be useful for many campaigns.
Also useless for elves who can't be put to sleep by magic.
Honestly, as a DM, I have found my party in pretty dire situations where there was NO WAY to take a short rest, but they could have easily managed to buy 10 minutes for Catnap. Also, you can cast it while the wizard is casting a ritual. Sometimes time matters, and having the chance to replenish your health/class feature in 10 minutes goes a long way.
Coming from 2E AD&D, when I first looked at Catnap I was quite pleased to see the Nap spell had survived through the editions. Then I realized how much worse it is than the spell it was based off of... it has it's niche uses, to be sure, but I don't see it being used often. But then, if they were to make it a Long Rest I think it'd be somewhat overpowered. Imagine being able to get a full Long Rest in a 10-minute or even 1-hour time period. That'd be crazy.
Think about how many classes get quite a bit of their kit back on short rests. There are lots of ways to find 10 minutes when an hour might be problematic. Like in the middle of most dungeons or when an enemy may be hunting you or the like. This is one of those spells that when you look at it white room. It doesn't seem that good or might even seem bad. But if you have the space and have it on hand in "real world" situations you start finding all kinds of odd little places to use it that are hard to mention or think of out of the moment and somebody that is looking at it white room is always going to have a "Well Just do this instead" type of response that may not actually work real world.
For Example. Catnap can be a good way to get rests in but keep the rest of the party prepared for danger. Which is a lot easier to do for 10 minutes than it is for an Hour. Because you can potentially do it to the entire party in 20 minutes compared to possibly 2 hours and at least one spoiled short rest if you end up with an encounter 30 or 45 minutes in because you decided it was too costly to do some 8 hour protective spell or something for an hour rest.
(edited to change the kind of rest because my brain got it wrong when it wrote the post)
Its useful for when you are in an area where it would be dangerous to take a whole short rest, but could really use some hit dice or refresh short rest abilities/warlock spell slots. Especially if you don't want to just kind of beg the DM to just let the whole party have a free short rest. Less meta-gamey that way.
It would let your short resters get their rest in after an encounter while the rest of the team are looting, looking for tracks, ect. To not slow down the adventureing day.
Right now we’re in a place where we’re in danger of being attacked during sleep relatively often while traveling so i always cast catnap before bed on the other two party members so that if we were attacked, at least 2/3rds of the party has a short rest. It’s been super useful at times
That's really clever. I've thought of using remaining spell slots for things like ring of spell-storing, but hadn't considered catnap. Definitely passing this on to my group!
Actually I think Catnap is great; it's best if your group has other casters who have rituals, as while they're prepping those you can get in a quick 10 minute short rest and carry on.
Warlock / Bard here. Apply Inspiring Leader on all members of the party. Use Warlock slot to cast Aid on party members. Then Catnap with your second Warlock slot. Then cast Aid on any remaining characters / familiars / mounts. Catnap again. Repeat until everyone has Aid and all warlock slots are full. Now you have full spell slots, everyone has Aid, and everyone has had a short rest, so you can apply Inspiring Leader again immediately following the next combat without stopping to rest. If you can Speak to animals, you can apply Inspiring leader and increase their HPs as well. No more one hit familiars.
Warlock / Bard here. Apply Inspiring Leader on all members of the party. Use Warlock slot to cast Aid on party members. Then Catnap with your second Warlock slot. Then cast Aid on any remaining characters / familiars / mounts. Catnap again. Repeat until everyone has Aid and all warlock slots are full. Now you have full spell slots, everyone has Aid, and everyone has had a short rest, so you can apply Inspiring Leader again immediately following the next combat without stopping to rest. If you can Speak to animals, you can apply Inspiring leader and increase their HPs as well. No more one hit familiars.
"If a target remains unconscious for the full duration, that target gains the benefit of a short rest, and it can’t be affected by this spell again until it finishes a long rest."
Catnap can only be used on any given creature (ie. The Warlock) once per Long Rest.
Warlock / Bard here. Apply Inspiring Leader on all members of the party. Use Warlock slot to cast Aid on party members. Then Catnap with your second Warlock slot. Then cast Aid on any remaining characters / familiars / mounts. Catnap again. Repeat until everyone has Aid and all warlock slots are full. Now you have full spell slots, everyone has Aid, and everyone has had a short rest, so you can apply Inspiring Leader again immediately following the next combat without stopping to rest. If you can Speak to animals, you can apply Inspiring leader and increase their HPs as well. No more one hit familiars.
"If a target remains unconscious for the full duration, that target gains the benefit of a short rest, and it can’t be affected by this spell again until it finishes a long rest."
Catnap can only be used on any given creature (ie. The Warlock) once per Long Rest.
I missed that. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. I think it'll still be useful, just not as useful.
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Catnap
Seriously, if you can afford to take 10 minutes to rest you can almost always take an hour for a normal Short Rest.
Taking a spell for the extreme corner case where the DM says "you only have ten minutes to rest" seems a waste to me.
DCI: 3319125026
You aren't wrong. That same line of thinking is why I hate the warlock's level 20 ability.
One edge case I could come up with are spells like Wall of Force that have 10 minute timers.
If you’ve trapped someone with a concentration spell that lasts for 10 minutes you can utilize those 10 minutes to give your companions a short rest while you contain them.
Yeah, but how often is something like that going to come up?
DCI: 3319125026
Oddly this spell would be more useful in real life than in D&D.
But yeah, this is only useful when you're tapped out, needing a rest in an otherwise dangerous place or with very limited time - which are very "specific" situations and may not be useful for many campaigns.
Also useless for elves who can't be put to sleep by magic.
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Not sure what you mean? You make it happen. Wall of Force + Catnap = full short rest in the middle of any combat. You take it whenever you like.
Or do you mean how often are you fighting something and your party is out of resources? That’s kinda up to the DM but I see it all the time.
Honestly, as a DM, I have found my party in pretty dire situations where there was NO WAY to take a short rest, but they could have easily managed to buy 10 minutes for Catnap.
Also, you can cast it while the wizard is casting a ritual. Sometimes time matters, and having the chance to replenish your health/class feature in 10 minutes goes a long way.
step one: cast charm
step two: tell charmed npc he looks tired and you can help with that
step three: cast catnap on charmed npc
step four: rob that man blind.
Coming from 2E AD&D, when I first looked at Catnap I was quite pleased to see the Nap spell had survived through the editions. Then I realized how much worse it is than the spell it was based off of... it has it's niche uses, to be sure, but I don't see it being used often. But then, if they were to make it a Long Rest I think it'd be somewhat overpowered. Imagine being able to get a full Long Rest in a 10-minute or even 1-hour time period. That'd be crazy.
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Think about how many classes get quite a bit of their kit back on short rests. There are lots of ways to find 10 minutes when an hour might be problematic. Like in the middle of most dungeons or when an enemy may be hunting you or the like. This is one of those spells that when you look at it white room. It doesn't seem that good or might even seem bad. But if you have the space and have it on hand in "real world" situations you start finding all kinds of odd little places to use it that are hard to mention or think of out of the moment and somebody that is looking at it white room is always going to have a "Well Just do this instead" type of response that may not actually work real world.
For Example. Catnap can be a good way to get rests in but keep the rest of the party prepared for danger. Which is a lot easier to do for 10 minutes than it is for an Hour. Because you can potentially do it to the entire party in 20 minutes compared to possibly 2 hours and at least one spoiled short rest if you end up with an encounter 30 or 45 minutes in because you decided it was too costly to do some 8 hour protective spell or something for an hour rest.
(edited to change the kind of rest because my brain got it wrong when it wrote the post)
Its useful for when you are in an area where it would be dangerous to take a whole short rest, but could really use some hit dice or refresh short rest abilities/warlock spell slots. Especially if you don't want to just kind of beg the DM to just let the whole party have a free short rest. Less meta-gamey that way.
It would let your short resters get their rest in after an encounter while the rest of the team are looting, looking for tracks, ect. To not slow down the adventureing day.
Right now we’re in a place where we’re in danger of being attacked during sleep relatively often while traveling so i always cast catnap before bed on the other two party members so that if we were attacked, at least 2/3rds of the party has a short rest. It’s been super useful at times
That's really clever. I've thought of using remaining spell slots for things like ring of spell-storing, but hadn't considered catnap. Definitely passing this on to my group!
Actually I think Catnap is great; it's best if your group has other casters who have rituals, as while they're prepping those you can get in a quick 10 minute short rest and carry on.
It is however very much dependent on the party.
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i logged in to say that this is an absolutely BRILLIANT use of it.
Warlock / Bard here. Apply Inspiring Leader on all members of the party. Use Warlock slot to cast Aid on party members. Then Catnap with your second Warlock slot. Then cast Aid on any remaining characters / familiars / mounts. Catnap again. Repeat until everyone has Aid and all warlock slots are full. Now you have full spell slots, everyone has Aid, and everyone has had a short rest, so you can apply Inspiring Leader again immediately following the next combat without stopping to rest. If you can Speak to animals, you can apply Inspiring leader and increase their HPs as well. No more one hit familiars.
"If a target remains unconscious for the full duration, that target gains the benefit of a short rest, and it can’t be affected by this spell again until it finishes a long rest."
Catnap can only be used on any given creature (ie. The Warlock) once per Long Rest.
I missed that. Well, you know what they say about the best laid plans. I think it'll still be useful, just not as useful.