Does this character concept involving never taking a long rest and converting spell slots to sorcery points (aka coffeelock) violate RAW?

Question

Does the following, very cheesy character concept, violate any RAW? Please cite rules or official rulings in your answer. (Apart from RAW, I expect my DM to disallow or limit the concept, in the interest of balance. That is not part of my question.)

Elf. Multiclass: Sorcerer 2+ / Warlock 1+ / Bard 1

• Never takes a long rest. Ever. See question, Must 5e elves take a long rest? Specifically, whether adventuring or not, she makes sure that every 8 hour block includes more than 2 hours of combat or strenuous activity, to ensure that no interpretation of long rest rules would allow a long rest to be automatically triggered.
• Converts warlock spell slots into sorcery points. See @JeremyECrawford's tweet.
• Converts sorcery points into sorcery spell slots (or into spellcasting spell slots, once also multiclassing Bard) via Flexible Casting
• Spell slots created from sorcery points disappear upon long rest, as per Flexible Casting and a tweet from @JeremyECrawford; therefore these created spell slots will not disappear until used, e.g. for a character taking no long rests
• Spell slots created from sorcery points are in addition to, and not restoration of the sorcerer's spell slots which refresh on a long rest. This is not 100% clear from RAW or clarifications. But:
  (a) Flexible Casting uses the phrase, "additional Spell Slots";
  (b) the rule stating that created spell slots disappear on long rests is superfluous if created spell slots can only replace expended spell slots -- to have meaning it must be possible to create spell slots which are not replacements;
  (c) flexible casting does not use the word "recover", which is the word used for wizards' Arcane Recovery
• Restores warlock spell slots on a short rest, and repeats the cycle above, converting warlock spell slots to sorcery points to sorcerer (or spellcasting) spell slots
• During periods of downtime, takes as many short rests per day as permissible, to build up a stockpile of created sorcerer spell slots
• Stockpiling requires using bonus actions out of combat, discussed elsewhere
• Stockpiling requires having short rests on downtime days, discussed in a comment below
• While adventuring, during combat, uses created spell slots to cast spells, and/or uses flexible casting to convert those spell slots back into sorcery points
• While adventuring, after combat, will use created spell slots with Bard spells to restore hits points, since restoring hit points via long rest is unavailable, and via hit dice is mostly unavailable

I'm pretty sure this is not RAI, but does it violate RAW in some way?

Answer 1

The big issue with this seems to rely on being able to stockpile spell slots through short rests during downtime. Unfortunately, in the Resting rules (page 67 of the basic rules), it states:

Adventurers can take short rests in the midst of an adventuring day and a long rest to end the day.

This leads me to believe that RAW, characters cannot take short rests during Downtime days and so the theoretical character has no chance to stockpile spell slots.

Answer 2

This no longer works under RAW, due to wording changes in later printings. Once your elf uses the Trance feature for four hours, they satisfy the conditions for a long rest, and thus take a long rest.

The recent errata change, due to updated wording in the PHB, clarifies how long rests now work:

Long Rest (p. 186). The first sentence of the rule now reads, “A long rest is a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps for at least 6 hours and performs no more than 2 hours of light activity, such as reading, talking, eating, or standing watch.”

In addition, you regain at least one Hit Die when you finish a long rest.

The Sage Advice Compendium clarifies how this interacts with an elf's Trance trait:

Does the Trance trait allow an elf to finish a long rest in 4 hours? If an elf meditates during a long rest (as described in the Trance trait), the elf finishes the rest after only 4 hours. A meditating elf otherwise follows all the rules for a long rest; only the duration is changed. [This answer has been altered as a result of a tweak to the rules for a long rest, which appears in newer printings of the Player’s Handbook.]

Answer 3

Not necessarily a violation, but a concern, which I noticed thanks to Weaveworker89’s comment, that may affect this character’s ability to maintain this approach:

Adventurers can take [...] a long rest to end the day.

Long rests are what end an adventuring day. Without them, an adventuring day never ends, and thus a new day (including, e.g., a downtime day) doesn’t begin.

This means that the character, should he wish to maintain and/or grow his stockpile of spells, must remain constantly in “adventure mode.” He cannot take advantage of any downtime-only activities.

This does address the problem raised by Weaveworker89’s answer: since the character is eternally “in the midst of an [endless] adventuring day,” he can always take short rests, even if we stipulate that short rests cannot happen on a downtime day.

Answer 4

New (optional) RAW Makes It Possible, But Expensive

As CTWind mentions in a comment on the original question, since this question was originally asked Xanathar's Guide to Everything set out new optional rules for going without a long rest.

GOING WITHOUT A LONG REST...

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. (XGtE: p.78)

If your DM decides to follow this rule, that means that within a short time (a week for most possible characters), you will begin to gain a level of exhaustion every day that you do not take a long rest, regardless of how well you roll on a Constitution Saving Throw. And if six levels of exhaustion are accrued, your character will die (PHB, p. 291).

Note that at sufficiently high levels your strategy can still be a net-gain, with some modifications. This rule can only produce one level of exhaustion each day. And 7 Sorcery Points can create a 5th level spell slot. And if you were a Divine Soul sorcerer (XGtE, p. 50) you can learn the 5th level spell Greater Restoration at 9th level, which removes a level of exhaustion. If you were a Divine Soul Sorcerer 9+/Warlock 3+ you could produce 4 Sorcery Points per short rest, and thus could generate enough Sorcery Points in a day to cast Greater Restoration once each day, and still have enough sorcery points left over to generate other useful spell slots.

Unfortunately, this strategy will require at least 100 gold pieces worth of diamond dust every day, which can quickly deplete an adventurer's supply if used during downtime. But it is still a possible option within the rules.

Answer 5

This does not technically violate RAW, but if you never rest, you get tired.

So, first, the combo as described works, technically. The problem is that it works by never ending the adventuring day, and Long Rest resets more than just your hit dice and spell slots.

In particular, the overland travel rules are per day. More specifically, the Forced March rules make clear that Overland Travel is assuming 8 hours of movement per day and that if you go beyond that, you start developing levels of Exhaustion. You can fend off that exhaustion with Con saves, but the DC on those saves go up with every hour past the 8 that you march. Exhaustion, in turn, rapidly becomes debilitating, and the only ways to heal it are a 5th level spell with a 100gp material component, a rare potion, and long rests.

This is in addition to the optional rule that @Gandalfmeansme pointed out that just straight-up hits you with a level of exhaustion every day.

One addendum on the bright side for the build: While this is a pretty hard limit on going forever, the warlock/sorceror also has a decently efficient technique for turning sorcery points into damage. Eldritch Blast's nature as a cantrip that is augmented by class features means that it's an especially good use for Quickened Spell (2 sorcery points), and Warlocks don't have many ways by default to use those bonus actions. So you do have to sleep sometimes, but if your constitution save is good enough (and it's worth investing in, given the requirement of concentration) you can still do pretty respectably for yourself even with the only modestly egregious number of temp slots you can assemble.

Answer 6

This does not violate the RAW.

Explicitly, you can CREATE (not refresh) slots with Flexible Casting. As you pointed out, the JC tweets support that RAI.

The Sage Advice tweet still leaves open whether the slots created are "Pact Magic Slots" or "Spellcasting Slots". The exact language is:

Multiclassing: Spell slots from Spellcasting and Pact Magic are interchangeable (PH, 164). Flexible Casting cares about slot level.

That is a non-answer. It goes on to say:

Multiclassing/Flexible Casting/Pact Magic: Sorcery points can create a slot that's used with Pact Magic. It's not a "warlock slot."

So, I read that as "you can make Pact Magic short refresh slots" using those sorcery points.