D&D 5E Is Xanathars The New UA? AKA A Munchkins Book

[Dausuul]

What the heck is a coffeelock, does the character make pact for magical power with a Starbucks Barrista, or the spirit of Canadian Coffee Titian Tim Horton?

The name is a bit misleading. Your patron is actually the Spirit of Cheese. You also have to choose the Pact of the Rules Lawyer.

Basically, some joker observed that sorcerer spell slots created using Font of Magic last until your next long rest. And there is not, by the book, any limit to how many you can create. So, if you make a multiclass sorcerer/warlock, you can use your sorcery points to create sorcerer spell slots; take a short rest; burn your warlock spell slots to create more sorcery points; and repeat ad infinitum. As long as you never take a long rest (thus, "coffeelock"), you can accumulate unlimited slots this way.

It's an absurd build, and the idea that the designers should waste their time addressing such extreme rules-lawyering is silly. A DM who doesn't shoot this one down deserves whatever they get. There are certainly balance issues in 5E that ought to be dealt with. This is not one of them.

 

[Maxperson]

The name is a bit misleading. Your patron is actually the Spirit of Cheese. You also have to choose the Pact of the Rules Lawyer.

Basically, some joker observed that sorcerer spell slots created using Font of Magic last until your next long rest. And there is not, by the book, any limit to how many you can create. So, if you make a multiclass sorcerer/warlock, you can use your sorcery points to create sorcerer spell slots; take a short rest; burn your warlock spell slots to create more sorcery points; and repeat ad infinitum. As long as you never take a long rest (thus, "coffeelock"), you can accumulate unlimited slots this way.

It's an absurd build, and the idea that the designers should waste their time addressing such extreme rules-lawyering is silly. A DM who doesn't shoot this one down deserves whatever they get. There are certainly balance issues in 5E that ought to be dealt with. This is not one of them.

Yep. It's just like Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun relies on the DM actually allowing a 9th level spell to duplicate a god, which is beyond the power of any 9th level spell to do. Does the spell technically allow it? Sure. Would a DM understand that it really isn't to be allowed? Yep.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yep. It's just like Pun-Pun. Pun-Pun relies on the DM actually allowing a 9th level spell to duplicate a god, which is beyond the power of any 9th level spell to do. Does the spell technically allow it? Sure. Would a DM understand that it really isn't to be allowed? Yep.

The coffee lock is RAW though and doesn't require any creative interpretations. Stupid yes but I thought it was funny people thought 5E would be any different to 3.5 in terms of abusive things you could do lol. Its not as bad as 3E due to less splat but the 1st splat book for 5E compares well with the 1st 3.5 splat (Complete Warrior?).

 

[Maxperson]

The coffee lock is RAW though and doesn't require any creative interpretations. Stupid yes but I thought it was funny people thought 5E would be any different to 3.5 in terms of abusive things you could do lol. Its not as bad as 3E due to less splat but the 1st splat book for 5E compares well with the 1st 3.5 splat (Complete Warrior?).

Nobody is perfect. Given hundreds of thousands to millions of players, the sheer numbers will result in broken combos that the limited pool of playtesters and designers missed. The DM needs to make a corrective ruling and move on.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

The coffee lock is RAW though and doesn't require any creative interpretations. Stupid yes but I thought it was funny people thought 5E would be any different to 3.5 in terms of abusive things you could do lol. Its not as bad as 3E due to less splat but the 1st splat book for 5E compares well with the 1st 3.5 splat (Complete Warrior?).

Not RAW. RAW + VERY liberal DM interpretation. Here's some relevant information that kills coffee lock.
Short rest duration
Time between short rests
5E has been written to be much more resistant to loopholes than 3.5 was

 

[Zardnaar]

The name is a bit misleading. Your patron is actually the Spirit of Cheese. You also have to choose the Pact of the Rules Lawyer.

Basically, some joker observed that sorcerer spell slots created using Font of Magic last until your next long rest. And there is not, by the book, any limit to how many you can create. So, if you make a multiclass sorcerer/warlock, you can use your sorcery points to create sorcerer spell slots; take a short rest; burn your warlock spell slots to create more sorcery points; and repeat ad infinitum. As long as you never take a long rest (thus, "coffeelock"), you can accumulate unlimited slots this way.

It's an absurd build, and the idea that the designers should waste their time addressing such extreme rules-lawyering is silly. A DM who doesn't shoot this one down deserves whatever they get. There are certainly balance issues in 5E that ought to be dealt with. This is not one of them.

Divine Soul, your god is Fondue.

 

[Zardnaar]

Not RAW. RAW + VERY liberal DM interpretation. Here's some relevant information that kills coffee lock.
Short rest duration
Time between short rests
5E has been written to be much more resistant to loopholes than 3.5 was

Pity its not in the actual book, doesn't change RAW. How many players do you think have all of Crawfords twitter suggestions conveniently available. I'm not even sure if 5E has an errata sheet anywhere lol.

 

[Zardnaar]

Nobody is perfect. Given hundreds of thousands to millions of players, the sheer numbers will result in broken combos that the limited pool of playtesters and designers missed. The DM needs to make a corrective ruling and move on.

The MC rules in the PHB its kind of obvious letting warlocks use spell slots on other classes is a bad idea. Although mixing short rest and long rest classes in the same game is also a bad idea IMHO, seems like a lot of people (most") don't even use the 6-8 encounters thing including the adventure writers.

The amount of synergy between all of the charisma classes is bonkers. And they screwed up intelligence as a stat as well not helped by 1 int based class with 2 1/3rd casters that will struggle to use it due to MAD.

 

[Treantmonklvl20]

Honestly, Healing Spirit isn't gamebreaking either. Clerics can heal, but in 5E they are not anywhere near unique or even arguably the best in that function before Healing Spirit hit the page. Wizard/Druids were always pretty amazing healers, using a familiar to deliver goodberries to downed foes was like 10 healing words with one first level spell, except much better than that as the bonus action was not used, the range was improved, and it did not restrict spell casting with regular actions. (magical aptitude: Druid for a wizard or magical aptitude: Wizard for a Druid can achieve the same trick. As can Ranger/Arcane Tricksters etc.)

If you compare Healing Spirit to Prayer of Healing, of course it looks insane, only because Prayer of Healing isn't an effective out of combat healing spell. Try comparing it to Rope Trick instead (the previous best out of combat healing spell). Now we compare:

Time the party must spend in danger to get the healing of the spell:
Healing Spirit: 10 rounds (one minute)
Rope Trick: 1 round

Amount of healing the spell will provide:
Healing Spirit: 10d6
Rope Trick: Up to 1HD+Con bonus per level (+ any Bard bonus)

Other benefits provided:
Healing Spirit: none
Rope Trick: Arcane spell recovery, Action surge, Ki point recovery, Font of inspiration recovery, Pact Magic recovery...etc.

Other things to consider:
Healing Spirit: none
Rope Trick: Will use up one hour of in-game time. Characters limited to Level HD per day in healing

Not saying Rope Trick is better as an out of combat recovery spell, but it is more sobering when compared to Healing Spirit as out of combat recovery spells.

 

[Parmandur]

Pretty close to the opposite of UA, which was a quick, shoddily written unplaytested cash grab. XGtE was carefully thought out and play tested before release, with public input taken into account. Just because somebody can abuse a variant rule in a way that any DM wouldn't allow to work doesn't make it comparable to the hot mess of UA.