A very controversial build, but technically legal. I've always been a "if it exists, exploit it" kind of guy, but the sleepless tyrant may just break me. Any ideas for making it less..."gamebreaking"?
The easy "fix" is to limit the number of short rests per day to some reasonable finite number. If the "average" adventuring day is assumed to be 8-12 hours, and include 3-7 encounters, then a reasonable option would be to cap a day at 4 short rests. (That's 1/2 to 1/3rd of the adventuring day spent napping.)
This should let the Warlock easily keep up with the group on a rough dungeon crawl, and on light days, they can spend the night casting a few free spells.
As long as there is a hard cap, then the CoffeeLock can't afford to control an army of undead without risking losing control of them all after a rough day of adventuring.
A Short Rest could be represented as withdrawing cash from an ATM. You can withdraw $1 every hour, but your direct deposit is only putting $1 in every 6 hours (Up to the max), so eventually you've just gotta wait until the next payday whether you spend that time sleeping or twiddling your thumbs.
It's an interesting way to use the rules, but I don't see it as a real problem. The DM can talk to a player and tell them not to abuse it. If it starts to be abused, the DM can counter it relatively easily: For example, throw an encounters at the party in the middle of a short rest, and/or generally make taking excessive short rests unpalatable enough for the rest of the party that they refuse to allow it. Eventually, they'll stop abusing it... But it's still a valid use of the PCs abilities, so fine to be used in a reasonable manner.
A very controversial build, but technically legal. I've always been a "if it exists, exploit it" kind of guy, but the sleepless tyrant may just break me. Any ideas for making it less..."gamebreaking"?
nothing like playing with someone who doesn't want to the play the game in front of them - makes for great gameflow for the rest of the table. imo there's a difference between creative use and exploits.
CoffeeLock only breaks the game if the DM allows the player to forego long rests (that's what allows stockpiling unlimited spell slots.) Aspect of the Moon lets you forego sleep, but that doesn't mean long rests become completely unnecessary.
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.
CoffeeLock only breaks the game if the DM allows the player to forego long rests (that's what allows stockpiling unlimited spell slots.) Aspect of the Moon lets you forego sleep, but that doesn't mean long rests become completely unnecessary.
Yeah, start throwing challenges at the party that induce Exhaustion. Introduce an NPC who regularly contacts party members through the Dream spell so anyone not sleeping is missing out on content. Alternatively, just make fights harder. Eventually the healers will be out of spell slots and the player will be out of hit dice to recover on a short rest. Maybe give them a task to focus on during the night that prevents them from short resting, if only for a couple hours.
How can you vet unlimited spell slots when your max SP=Sorcerer lvl?
Step 1: convert Warlock slots into SP (until capped)
Step 2: Convert SP to spell slots (TECHNICALLY there's nowhere that says there's a cap on spell slots, to which I would argue the "max" is what's on the class table, but since it never says you cant have MORE than what's on the table, its RAW)
Step 3: Short rest to regain Warlock slots
Step 4: Repeat 1-3
There are a few iffy rule interpretations that can really push the legality of this build either way. I support the interpretation that it IS RAW, but its INCREDIBLY cheezy and I don't allow it as a DM because of the "come-on-man..." rule lol
A DM friend of mine was throwing out the idea that pact slots cannot be converted to sorcery points. That's kind of the crux of the build as I understand it though, so not sure if the combo would be worthwhile anymore.
I think an interesting way to handle it is to dig into the flavor here. The character is taking magic granted from their patron and absorbing into themselves to change it into something else. This seems like a process that may be offensive to the patron. Or maybe absorbing magic from the Great Old One directly into your own lifeforce begins to cause some unwanted side effects. You would need to houserule the consequences, but it's not a thematic stretch at all to attach penalties to overusing this kind of thing.
Yeah, start throwing challenges at the party that induce Exhaustion. Introduce an NPC who regularly contacts party members through the Dream spell so anyone not sleeping is missing out on content. Alternatively, just make fights harder. Eventually the healers will be out of spell slots and the player will be out of hit dice to recover on a short rest. Maybe give them a task to focus on during the night that prevents them from short resting, if only for a couple hours.
You really don't have to inflict exhaustion through encounters, just make sure the warlock is penalized for skipping a long rest just like anyone else would be. Like I said, not needing sleep isn't the same as not needing rest; you arguably still need to give your mind and body a break at the end of the day. Aspect of the Moon just lets you spend that downtime somewhat productively.
Step 1: convert Warlock slots into SP (until capped)
Step 2: Convert SP to spell slots (TECHNICALLY there's nowhere that says there's a cap on spell slots, to which I would argue the "max" is what's on the class table, but since it never says you cant have MORE than what's on the table, its RAW)
A DM friend of mine was throwing out the idea that pact slots cannot be converted to sorcery points. That's kind of the crux of the build as I understand it though, so not sure if the combo would be worthwhile anymore.
I think an interesting way to handle it is to dig into the flavor here. The character is taking magic granted from their patron and absorbing into themselves to change it into something else. This seems like a process that may be offensive to the patron. Or maybe absorbing magic from the Great Old One directly into your own lifeforce begins to cause some unwanted side effects. You would need to houserule the consequences, but it's not a thematic stretch at all to attach penalties to overusing this kind of thing.
Not letting them skip long rests to roll over slots from one day to the next is enough in my opinion. Without that you're left with a build that sacrifices higher level spells and a big chunk of your adventuring day to cast more low level spells, which honestly isn't that amazing and most of those spells become less useful as you level. Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast beats most 1st level spells by 5th level.
The conversion process is limited by your warlock slots and your max sorcery points so any build that only goes 2 levels into warlock or sorcerer is really slow to accumulate extra slots and any build with a more 50-50 level split gets even less access to higher level spells and features. It's honestly not that great.
Hi there I got a play determine to use this character in an up coming campaign. I don't want to be a DM that just say no so I'm hoping this rule from PHB page 201 will stop him building up unlimited sorcery spell slots which if I understand it right is how this coffelock works
Spell Slots
Regardless of how many spells a caster knows or prepares, he or she can cast only a limited number of spells before resting. Manipulating the fabric of magic and channeling its energy into even a simple spell is physically and mentally taxing, and higher- level spells are even more so. Thus, each spellcasting class's description (except that of the warlock) includes a table showing how many spell slots of each spell level a character can use at each character level. For example, the 3rd-level wizard Umara has four 1st-level spell slots and two 2nd-level slots
Xanathar's Guide has some rules on taking long rests, or more specifically on NOT taking them. Note that, like much of that sourcebook, they are optional rules, so are at the discretion of the DM.
Whenever you end a 24-hour period without finishing a long rest, you must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or suffer one level of exhaustion.
It becomes harder to fight off exhaustion if you stay awake for multiple days. After the first 24 hours, the DC increases by 5 for each consecutive 24-hour period without a long rest. The DC resets to 10 when you finish a long rest.
I honestly think you may be better off just saying no. The other players will likely not have nearly as much fun with a character who outshines them so much by using an unintended combo, so do it for them if not for yourself. Point this out to the player too: they can also help make sure everyone else at the table has a great game experience! Even apparently disruptive players can sometimes be your best allies if you talk to them openly and ask them to help make the game better for everyone.
There a numerous places in the rules that the coffee-lock stretches the rules. The text you quote is one but the player may argue that the specific rule of converting SP to spell slots overides the general rule.
Another rule is "A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.". I would determine that an 8 hour period of downtime wwhich is not a long rest is a single short rest as it is at least 8 hours long.
The most important rule however refers to the DM for example
"The DM is a referee. When it’s not clear what ought to happen next, the DM decides how to apply the rules and keep the story going."
It’s not a competition. The DM isn’t competing against the player characters. You’re there to run the monsters, referee the rules, and keep the story moving.
The most important thing to remember about being a good DM is that the rules are a tool to help you have a good time. The rules aren’t in charge. You’re the DM — you’re in charge of the game. Guide the play experience and the use of the rules so that everybody has fun.
Make sure everyone is involved. Ensure every character has a chance to shine.
How the rules concerning how sorcerer abilities and warlock abilites interact is your decision, you want to ensure evereyone not just the coffeelock has a chance to shine and have fun.
One thing to consider is that the coffeelock is not the only class that loves to short rest. Fighters and Monks also loves a short rest after every battle and the way to handle those 2 classes is the same way you handle coffeelocks. Make certain objectives of the campaign time sensitive. They take too many short rests and they end up failing their goal, this can also make the campaign more interesting when a sense if urgency is added.
Also make certain things clear at the start of the campaign before somebody decides to build a coffeelock. Like you cannot go over the amount of spell slots a sorcerer normally has access to.
Also people tend to just say that a coffeelock is OP without considering the price they have to pay to build the character. In general a coffeelock has to be at least 2 sorcerer 2 warlock to even start to be remotely effective, that means their spell progression is set back by at least 2 levels. In shorter campaigns that end at around lvl 10 a coffeelock will not even get access to 5th lvl spells. In a campaign that runs to lvl 20 the coffeelock will not get 9th lvl spells until lvl 19!
I’m firmly of the belief that as a DM, you should *never* change the campaign or encounters to deal with a build that you’re uncomfortable with.
It’ll come off looking like you’re trying to punish a character specifically targeted at their character, despite you saying it was OK. Sorry, but that’s going to make you look *very* petty.
Enforce the exhaustion rules for long rest, or put a cap on spell slots, or just let the coffeelock exist. But whatever you decide on, accept the consequences.
Personally, I would never allow a player to create a coffeelock for a campaign. HOWEVER, if you want to have some fun, give your player 20 short rests and have them fight a dragon in a one shot. :D
I assume that RAI was that spell slots for warlock should not be the same as spell slots from the sorcerer/other spell casting classes. This is implied by the section in multiclassing on pact magic showing both entities (see below). This is not out right stated so I can't say the separation is raw but it is justifiable. The bigger issue in my mind is allowing higher non pact slots to be refreshable by a short rest with a small warlock dip.
Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.
A very controversial build, but technically legal. I've always been a "if it exists, exploit it" kind of guy, but the sleepless tyrant may just break me. Any ideas for making it less..."gamebreaking"?
"No pity, no remorse, no fear!"
Is it a "CoffeeLock" if it's not game breaking?
The easy "fix" is to limit the number of short rests per day to some reasonable finite number. If the "average" adventuring day is assumed to be 8-12 hours, and include 3-7 encounters, then a reasonable option would be to cap a day at 4 short rests. (That's 1/2 to 1/3rd of the adventuring day spent napping.)
This should let the Warlock easily keep up with the group on a rough dungeon crawl, and on light days, they can spend the night casting a few free spells.
As long as there is a hard cap, then the CoffeeLock can't afford to control an army of undead without risking losing control of them all after a rough day of adventuring.
A Short Rest could be represented as withdrawing cash from an ATM. You can withdraw $1 every hour, but your direct deposit is only putting $1 in every 6 hours (Up to the max), so eventually you've just gotta wait until the next payday whether you spend that time sleeping or twiddling your thumbs.
What is the game breaking problem?
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Assuming I understand CoffeeLock correctly:
It's an interesting way to use the rules, but I don't see it as a real problem. The DM can talk to a player and tell them not to abuse it. If it starts to be abused, the DM can counter it relatively easily: For example, throw an encounters at the party in the middle of a short rest, and/or generally make taking excessive short rests unpalatable enough for the rest of the party that they refuse to allow it. Eventually, they'll stop abusing it... But it's still a valid use of the PCs abilities, so fine to be used in a reasonable manner.
nothing like playing with someone who doesn't want to the play the game in front of them - makes for great gameflow for the rest of the table. imo there's a difference between creative use and exploits.
Guide to the Five Factions (PWYW)
Deck of Decks
CoffeeLock only breaks the game if the DM allows the player to forego long rests (that's what allows stockpiling unlimited spell slots.) Aspect of the Moon lets you forego sleep, but that doesn't mean long rests become completely unnecessary.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
How can you vet unlimited spell slots when your max SP=Sorcerer lvl?
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]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.
Attack: [roll]3d20dl2+6[/roll] Damage: [roll](if([roll:-1:critical], =0, 1d8, 2{1d8}.expand()))+4[/roll] Sneakattack: [roll](if([roll:-2:critical], =0, 2d6, 2{2d6}.expand()))[/roll]Yeah, start throwing challenges at the party that induce Exhaustion. Introduce an NPC who regularly contacts party members through the Dream spell so anyone not sleeping is missing out on content. Alternatively, just make fights harder. Eventually the healers will be out of spell slots and the player will be out of hit dice to recover on a short rest. Maybe give them a task to focus on during the night that prevents them from short resting, if only for a couple hours.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Step 1: convert Warlock slots into SP (until capped)
Step 2: Convert SP to spell slots (TECHNICALLY there's nowhere that says there's a cap on spell slots, to which I would argue the "max" is what's on the class table, but since it never says you cant have MORE than what's on the table, its RAW)
Step 3: Short rest to regain Warlock slots
Step 4: Repeat 1-3
There are a few iffy rule interpretations that can really push the legality of this build either way. I support the interpretation that it IS RAW, but its INCREDIBLY cheezy and I don't allow it as a DM because of the "come-on-man..." rule lol
A DM friend of mine was throwing out the idea that pact slots cannot be converted to sorcery points. That's kind of the crux of the build as I understand it though, so not sure if the combo would be worthwhile anymore.
I think an interesting way to handle it is to dig into the flavor here. The character is taking magic granted from their patron and absorbing into themselves to change it into something else. This seems like a process that may be offensive to the patron. Or maybe absorbing magic from the Great Old One directly into your own lifeforce begins to cause some unwanted side effects. You would need to houserule the consequences, but it's not a thematic stretch at all to attach penalties to overusing this kind of thing.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
You really don't have to inflict exhaustion through encounters, just make sure the warlock is penalized for skipping a long rest just like anyone else would be. Like I said, not needing sleep isn't the same as not needing rest; you arguably still need to give your mind and body a break at the end of the day. Aspect of the Moon just lets you spend that downtime somewhat productively.
Bingo. And there's definitely no cap because you're creating new spell slots, not just restoring expended slots. In fact there's a Sorcerer monster in Tales From the Yawning Portal that intentionally has six 1st level slots in its stat block.
Not letting them skip long rests to roll over slots from one day to the next is enough in my opinion. Without that you're left with a build that sacrifices higher level spells and a big chunk of your adventuring day to cast more low level spells, which honestly isn't that amazing and most of those spells become less useful as you level. Eldritch Blast with Agonizing Blast beats most 1st level spells by 5th level.
The conversion process is limited by your warlock slots and your max sorcery points so any build that only goes 2 levels into warlock or sorcerer is really slow to accumulate extra slots and any build with a more 50-50 level split gets even less access to higher level spells and features. It's honestly not that great.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Hi there I got a play determine to use this character in an up coming campaign. I don't want to be a DM that just say no so I'm hoping this rule from PHB page 201 will stop him building up unlimited sorcery spell slots which if I understand it right is how this coffelock works
Spell Slots
Regardless of how many spells a caster knows or prepares, he or she can cast only a limited number of spells before resting. Manipulating the fabric of magic and channeling its energy into even a simple spell is physically and mentally taxing, and higher- level spells are even more so. Thus, each spellcasting class's description (except that of the warlock) includes a table showing how many spell slots of each spell level a character can use at each character level. For example, the 3rd-level wizard Umara has four 1st-level spell slots and two 2nd-level slots
-
View User Profile
-
View Posts
-
Send Message
D&D Beyond FoundersXanathar's Guide has some rules on taking long rests, or more specifically on NOT taking them. Note that, like much of that sourcebook, they are optional rules, so are at the discretion of the DM.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/xgte/dungeon-masters-tools#GoingwithoutaLongRest
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I honestly think you may be better off just saying no. The other players will likely not have nearly as much fun with a character who outshines them so much by using an unintended combo, so do it for them if not for yourself. Point this out to the player too: they can also help make sure everyone else at the table has a great game experience! Even apparently disruptive players can sometimes be your best allies if you talk to them openly and ask them to help make the game better for everyone.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
There a numerous places in the rules that the coffee-lock stretches the rules. The text you quote is one but the player may argue that the specific rule of converting SP to spell slots overides the general rule.
Another rule is "A short rest is a period of downtime, at least 1 hour long, during which a character does nothing more strenuous than eating, drinking, reading, and tending to wounds.". I would determine that an 8 hour period of downtime wwhich is not a long rest is a single short rest as it is at least 8 hours long.
The most important rule however refers to the DM for example
How the rules concerning how sorcerer abilities and warlock abilites interact is your decision, you want to ensure evereyone not just the coffeelock has a chance to shine and have fun.
One thing to consider is that the coffeelock is not the only class that loves to short rest. Fighters and Monks also loves a short rest after every battle and the way to handle those 2 classes is the same way you handle coffeelocks. Make certain objectives of the campaign time sensitive. They take too many short rests and they end up failing their goal, this can also make the campaign more interesting when a sense if urgency is added.
Also make certain things clear at the start of the campaign before somebody decides to build a coffeelock. Like you cannot go over the amount of spell slots a sorcerer normally has access to.
Also people tend to just say that a coffeelock is OP without considering the price they have to pay to build the character. In general a coffeelock has to be at least 2 sorcerer 2 warlock to even start to be remotely effective, that means their spell progression is set back by at least 2 levels. In shorter campaigns that end at around lvl 10 a coffeelock will not even get access to 5th lvl spells. In a campaign that runs to lvl 20 the coffeelock will not get 9th lvl spells until lvl 19!
I’m firmly of the belief that as a DM, you should *never* change the campaign or encounters to deal with a build that you’re uncomfortable with.
It’ll come off looking like you’re trying to punish a character specifically targeted at their character, despite you saying it was OK. Sorry, but that’s going to make you look *very* petty.
Enforce the exhaustion rules for long rest, or put a cap on spell slots, or just let the coffeelock exist. But whatever you decide on, accept the consequences.
Personally, I would never allow a player to create a coffeelock for a campaign. HOWEVER, if you want to have some fun, give your player 20 short rests and have them fight a dragon in a one shot. :D
I assume that RAI was that spell slots for warlock should not be the same as spell slots from the sorcerer/other spell casting classes. This is implied by the section in multiclassing on pact magic showing both entities (see below). This is not out right stated so I can't say the separation is raw but it is justifiable. The bigger issue in my mind is allowing higher non pact slots to be refreshable by a short rest with a small warlock dip.
Pact Magic. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain from the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.