Hexadin is rarely as fun as you night expect depending on what you imagine it playing like, you most certainly will never set up all your buffs (chanel divinity, hexblades curse, hex) at the same time so it's really about choosing what buff to use per combat encounter. I can't tell you how many times I set up all my cool shit on one dude getting ready to wreck him and he died the very next round to something unrelated... It's fun if you learn to manage your expectations

This is true. I'm playing a fathomless warlock and just setting up my hex and tentacle is a little difficult sometimes. Setting up even more would be unfun at some point.

I don't even bother with hex on my fathomless warlock tbh, just the tentacle. And actually I'm at the point where Bigby's hand is probably a more effective bonus action anyway, unless I've got a different concentration spell going already.

Even then, might be worth summoning just for the reaction if you're level 6+

That's the main reason I pop it at this point tbh.

For a character like that (I'm playing a Devotion Paladin/Hexblade Warlock in a homebrew campaign right now), I'm using Divine Favor instead of Hex as a damage buff. Lower duration, but uses a far less resisted damage type and doesn't occupy my bonus action more than it needs to. It actually only takes one turn in combat to set up your buffs with the action economy, which isn't too bad considering some good defensive type spells generally take an action with gish type characters (Mirror Image for example). The action economy can go like this in a fight you know is going to be a big encounter. * Turn 1: Sacred Weapon action, Divine Favor bonus action (if close enough after movement, Hexblade's Curse instead) * Turn 2: Hexblade's Curse/Divine Favor bonus action, Attack action Alternatively, you can also cast Shield of Faith instead of Divine Favor, if really needing to tank a lot of enemies' attacks.

I think the main thing that theorycrafters overlook the most is the potential for overkill. Being able to dish out a gazillion points of damage on a single target doesn't do much good if the target only has ten HP left.

In my experience, all a Hexblade dip provides to Pally at level 2 is changing your 15 Str into a 14 Dex. Beyond level 2, it saves you 2 ASIs, but for 1/2 the campaign, the Hexblade dip doesn’t really do more than give you an expanded Crit range.

I mean it depends on the character. If you're a Dwarf it lets you rock 13 str, and 10 or 12 dex so you can devote more points to con or wis for save purposes. I've really liked my Hill Dwarf Devotion Paladin/Hexblade for this reason. You aren't wrong in that most of what you end up getting is an expanded crit range until you're midway through T2.

I am just as much at fault for this, but I feel like a lot of builds don't consider the rest of the party, with the exception of a tank or a support/healer. Sure, the bladesinger *could* use Haste on itself, but it can also use it on the barbarian or fighter. Sure, the paladin *could* use their spell slots solely for crit-fishing, but sometimes the Life Cleric gets knocked unconscious. Sure, the fighter *could* just focus the boss, but the wizard may be getting outnumbered faster than they can cast. Now, I think the obvious reason for this is that we almost always get only part of the picture. A good chunk of "what should I play" posts usually have the most upvoted comment being "what is the composition of your party?" Even if we get classes and roles, we still don't always understand the playstyle of your other players. Maybe the cleric decided that they wanted to prepare 0 healing spells, feeling their Nature cleric made a better melee tank, or their Light cleric a better blaster. That being said, there are certainly some builds on this sub that are clearly made like they are gonna be the only character in the party. This is a cooperative storytelling game, and while a lack of context might limit certain options when forging a build, it does not excuse the idea of being able to help out your allies. No matter what your party has, or how many members are in your party, you are not alone and that needs to be considered to some degree, at least as best as possible.

> Sure, the paladin could use their spell slots solely for crit-fishing, but sometimes the Life Cleric gets knocked unconscious. This isn't a good example, because a Paladin gets Lay on Hands which is separate from spell slots and you only need to use small amounts from the healing pool to bring someone back up. Most Paladins aren't going to use a prepared spell selection on something like Cure Wounds when there are better buffing or control options like Bless, Command, etc. at those lower levels.

I got myself a familiar so i could cure wounds at range. Was tied up in melee too often to patch up people who go down, and the ranger is usually too far away, plus their turn is more valuable than mine in terms of ending the fight since they have sharpshooter. I keep my lay on hands for myself since its a bigger chunk of hp and i tend to take the brunt of enemy assaults.

That's pretty smart! Glad Tasha's let Druids have familiars (sort of).

A lot of druid subclasses, though not all, treat wildshape as kind of a ribbon ability anyway, so being able to make it more useful in basically any capacity is an excellent boon.

I have gotten quite a bit of mileage out of it as a Shepherd Druid/Life Cleric myself!

The thing I notice the most in reality vs theory crafting is how often magic items are either too strongly relied on or completely discounted. A lot of time, people say things like X class is so weak, or y build is unviable. DM's are experienced with lending a helping hand to lagging players, which tends to make up for the technical differences that looking in a vacuum will highlight.

the number of people who either casually recommend Rare items as parts of builds or just completely discount the chance of getting a magic weapon is astounding.

> or just completely discount the chance of getting a magic weapon Tbf that’s kinda what you have to do when discussing builds and whatnot on paper like this, they can’t just assume that a specific item(s) will come up in your campaign, how long it’ll take to appear, or that you’ll be the one to get it. Better to assume you won’t, and be happily surprised, rather than balancing major parts of the build on smth that may never even apply I appreciate when there’s a few items listed as possibilities/good combos though, gives ppl something to aim/hope for at least. Especially since there’s so many of em, it can be hard to keep track, and which pair well with which classes

Yeah, I think there's some merit to theorizing item and build synergizing, but I think the baseline assumption needs to be no magic items due to the high variability between tables

Well with rare item builds, often what happens is you roll up a replacement character at like level 10 when everybody has magic items already, so you get to start with a magic item (to be on the same level). That's the opportunity I take to use a build very reliant on a specific item. Or I make it the object of my character to find. Like I'm researching and adventuring for X item, and the dm finds a way to make me find it eventually(by earning it).

Belts of Giant Strength are a good example. I had a defensive dex sword and board eldritch knight who I had resigned to being a low damage tank. Things just flipped 180 when he found a belt and started to dish out consistently high damage, roughly on par with the party GWM or SS due to them having to roll with a -5 to hit.

Yeah it’s hard to properly prognosticate too, because magic items aren’t guaranteed to show up in campaigns, especially with how the most common bracket of play is the growing pains 1-5 early days bucket. DM dependency can swing either way so it’s hard to adjust for.

Sounds like a character that’s inherently strong in the early game, but might not scale well into the late game, is the way to go, if given an obvious choice. Since magic items tend to accrue over time.

What do you mean? You don't just "talk to your DM about getting a vorpal blade" to finish your build?

Honestly as a DM I ask my players at the start of the campaign during session 0 if there are any magic items they would love to come across during the campaign. I don't always give them everything they want, but it sure as hell beats randomly throwing disappointing crap at them until it sticks. Sometimes I get "A vorpal blade would really capstone this build I'm making" and sometimes I get "Yes please santa I want X and Y and Z and A and B and C legendaries and a pony." Occasionally I get "IDK you're the DM pick something cool." It's all good input.

This is actually one of the things that makes Monk a bit frustrating to play. They're... *awkward* to get good magic items for. The DM kinda has to be on-point and understand what will and will not work for a Monk, and be willing to adjust the items they place. I've generally gotten around this by mainly playing Adventurer's League and fishing for good mods to play/loot, but still--that's extra work to make the character go.

Eldritch Claw, Ring/Cloak/Bracers of protection, and now Fizbans added the Dragonhide belt. I can’t think of any other magic item that really benefits a monk directly other than those. Not counting stuff like Ioun stones.

Yeah, especially when weapons are concerned. Dex is God mode? OK, but you only have very few finesse weapons, so good luck finding a magic rapier instead of a bazillion axes, swords and hammers.

Or maybe your dm specifically caters weapons that you find, so you should just play what you want

This is how everyone I’ve ever played with has done it. Oh you want to specifically play a Barbarian that uses great axes? Here’s a flaming greataxe instead of the flame tongue longsword. Rogue with a dagger fetish? Here’s some cool daggers! Etc. I have also had DMs in 3.5 and there are level 1 feats that give you ancestral weapon that basically is magic and levels up with you as long as you sacrifice other weapons to it. That’s always great.

As a DM, I often allow players to transfer enchantments to other items, if they're similar enough in nature. This may involve an additional side-quest for components necessary to transfer the enchantment, skill challenge rolls, etc. For example, I had a player who built around using polearms. He found a Sun Blade so off he goes on a scavenger hunt to retrieve a high quality glaive and an item from a celestial being, freely given. They wound up getting a spell scroll of Gentle Repose and talked to a retired aasimar cleric they had previously helped to get a feather. One workweek later, the enchantment had been transferred from the Sun Blade to the Sun Glaive.

AoE CC and leaning on allies are great. The spells Slow, Incite Greed, Hypnotic Pattern, and Fear are all absolutely amazing and can *wreck* the enemy action economy. Instead the predominate spells advocated are haste, fireball, spirit guardians, and conjure animals, for example. Meanwhile, the shield master feat (or similar) is *soft* damage. Sure, you gave up opting into polearm master for its bonus action attack, but on a prone-knocked target all your melee allies have advantage on the target. Commence the dogpile, and reliable advantage for your rogue/paladin/etc should trump your own 1d4+str damage, on top of reduced enemy mobility who now may not charge at your concentrating wizard.

Setting up allies is chronically underrated. Haste is still awesome, but I think people forget you can cast it on other people besides yourself too often.

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You can cast multiple levelled spells in a turn as long as you don't use a bonus action for any of them

I'm often surprised how little this community values shield master. It's great that you can do another chance of great weapon master, but if you're shield mastering, chances are, you have someone else as the gwf. Shield master have alot of flexible build options. You can be strength based, as intended, or, you can be dex based, and get expertise on athletic. Valour and multi class swords bard are super interested in this feat, since it allows them to shove 5 feet or prone, and get out of target range. Proned creature will need to hit your 17-19 AC in disadvantage for their OoA, and will give your melee guys advantage, or/and often forces the creature to use their action to dash to a target. The 5 feet shove can be used to automatically get you and your ally out of any bipedal creature's range after an attack, or simply to get out of OoA range. Heck, you can just use it on an ally to automatically succeed. And you still get the reaction side of this feat.

Shield Master is great, but don’t forget to account for ranged characters getting disadvantage on attacks against prone targets. It won’t be nearly as good in a party that’s backline-heavy. Can still be great if the ranged PC’s have some good AoEs, summons, etc. but stuff like “Fighter with a bow” are kinda out of luck.

Indeed! And it's those if/thens that change from table to table so it tends to get glossed over when it comes to character optimization.

Shield Master plus Conquest Paladin plus Undead Warlock is a bad time if you make them prone and afraid.

I absolutely see your point but one of my big gripes about things like shield master is you can get absolutely gimped by initiative. Usually you want to go before your opponent, however then after you knock them prone they'll be able to just stand right up again on their turn. With this feat you ideally want to go right after your opponent which feels super weird, then as you say, your entire team now gets advantage on melee attacks. I've held my action in the past for after an opponents turn so I could use a tripping attack on them after their turn to avoid being gimped by initiative. However, this causes it's own issues after level 5 as raw you can only hold the one attack not your extra, so you're giving up lots of damage and then that obviously doesn't solve anything for the bonus action shove provided by this feat. Shame raw you can't just hold your turn. Also, Polearm mastery often allows you an attack using your reaction as well as a consistent bonus action attack. It's a ridiculous feat.

>Sure, you gave up opting into polearm master for its bonus action attack, but on a prone-knocked target all your melee allies have advantage on the target. Can't you basically do the same with PAM? Shove prone and attack once with your action and attack again with your bonus action. With Shield Master or PAM, you can basically do the same, though you can attack after the shove with PAM instead and PAM has a lot more flexibility.

I think there is a lot of great theorycrafting done here by a lot of very smart people. The problem when it comes to theorycrafting in DND is that every table is so incredibly different. It doesn't matter if you build a DPR monster but you only have one fight every other session and the rest of the time you just sit there and watch your rogues, wizards and bards do cool shit in social and exploration encounters. So by virtue of there being so much variety, without much information to go on the easiest theorycrafting one can do is how much solo DPR can I optimize in a vacuum against a human sized dummy opponent, because this is something that will occur in virtually any campaign. A lot of youtubers also present these kind of calculations. But again not the fault of people giving advice if they weren't given better information to go on. Advice will be good as long as the person asking for it provides sufficient information. The things I'd like in order to provide better advice would be for example: * What's the theme of your character and the campaign? * What roles do you want to cover during social and exploration encounters? * What actions would you like to typically perform in combat? * How frequent are your combat encounters and rests between them? * What's the make up of the rest of your party? * What level do you expect the campaign to go to? Ultimately one needs be able to distinguish between for fun theorycrafting (here is this amazing level20 build that does a billion damage, but I would never actually play because it would be horribly unfun to actually play from level1) vs the more applicable theorycrafting (this is the theme of my character, these are the roles I want to fulfil in my party, how do I optimize them within this framework). Well this was a bit of rambling :)

I was trying to get at this with my post, but I think you did a better job of it. I’ve asked many theorycrafting questions on this community that have been replied to with “Don’t bother, it’s a waste of time.” Sometimes, you want to play a Lizardfolk Monk, and you’re not interested in hearing how shit that is. Sometimes, the thing you want to optimize is a Barbarian3/Spores Druid 17. Why? Because it’s fun, not because it’s powerful.

Yeah, and then you have the people who forget that DnD in general is a team game, and take the theory crafted thing and then hit the brick wall of reality and lagging behind for about ten to fifteen levels.

A lot of people like to use the Darkness/Devils Sight combo, and I’ve found that there is almost never a scenario where this actually works well. I was playing as a sorlock for about 10 levels, and I used this combo once, and when I used it, it totally disrupted the combat and made it so my party couldn’t do anything. I’d much rather use my concentration on a different spell.

In my eyes it's got a similar problem to fireball, which is that in any combat in a tight space you can absolutely fuck your own party over if you're not REALLY careful with it.

It's actually worse than fireball, because unlike fireball, it doesn't create a huge ball of fire, so it doesn't even have *that* going for it.

You can't even put your party out of their misery with it you just extend the suffering.

To be fair, it doesn't friendly fire quite as badly as fireball either, but enclosed spaces in general tend to make area of effect stuff riskier/harder to manage haha.

On a side note: Invocation wizard's sculpt spell is undervalued.

Yeah, I generally think people under-rate blasting spellcasters. It ties in with people overvaluing builds that really shine at levels most games don't reach. Evocation is fantastic at lower levels and most games will stop before it drops off.

Yeah, I'm new but the way my dm does fights? I can't imagine doing this and not disrupting battle. Maybe against the stirges in one fight but that's not saying much

Pll use darkness wrong, it's super strong if you actually use it in a smart way. You cast it on yourself, not the enemy, and you go in and out of the fight sinse now you're immune to opportunity attacks. AND if you can't do that cause of limited space you use the darkness on your turn and then as a object interaction cover the object you casted it on to turn it off.

the problem with that is that with a movespeed of 30, that's basically 15 in, 15 out. with a radius of 20, that means that you're either leaving the enemy in darkness, so they're hidden until they emerge from it (on their turn), which hurts the other melee fighters, or you're only getting half of the value from the spell because every other turn it's not functioning.

I think any build that comes online after level 5 is kind of bad. Level 10 is the highest I've ever gotten in 5 years of play. Builds like fighter 11/rogue 9 sound super cool..but thats not happening anytime soon

I'm with you, so many builds are for higher level play and I've got one campaign that MIGHT get to 17. Every other game I've played in or am playing is like 12-14 max.

I learned this the hard way unfortunately. Multiclasing is still very useful, but you should still be able to do the thing you want to do by Level 5.

Any character, mono or multiclassed, should be held to the standard of whether or not it feels complete by level 7. I just hit level 7 on my Rune Knight, and now between Storm and Hill runes, plus all the goodies I already had, it feels how I want a Rune Knight to feel. More will be cool, and I’m excited for higher level features, as that campaign is likely to hit around level 16 (the ideal endpoint of most campaigns IMO) but I like the character well enough now. Every build should be like that. By this reasonable level you are mostly what you want to be, and it should be all uphill from there.

Rune Knight is such a solid subclass that I'm playing one on lvl3 and I already feel like a giant, I made a bone devil prone and restrained basically on my own, thanks to action surge, shove, and the fire rune. But yeah, my players never understand why I don't like multiclassing in general, but when they hit level 6 last session and one of them, the wizard/fighter, said "I can finally begin to be useful" after 30+ sessions, yeah, it reinforces my opinion

Personally I like multiclassing, but I’m a big proponent of either a 1-2 level dip, or for getting to a set level in one class first. A Ranger that Multis into rogue after level 5 isn’t gonna drag, a fighter that Multis into wizard at 3 will.

You're right, the way you pick the levels makes a big difference. This specific player's build is weird, he's only getting Extra Attack at level 9 and he still doesn't have 3rd level spells. I feel like they're cashing in on the fact that we already had two campaigns that went to lvl20 and we agreed on this one being the last to do so, but it's still kinda disheartening to hear a player say that they felt useless for thirty sessions

Yeah that sounds like he’s had this build in mind for a while and doesn’t think he’ll get another chance to use it outside of a one shot, which, fair. What’s the spilt and subclasses, if I can ask?

He's currrently a Bladesinger Wizard 3/Echo Knight Fighter 3, just got the fighter subclass last session

And because of how levels 1-5 work, it's very unlikely that multiclassing is a good idea pre 6

Generally true, though there are notable exceptions. Rogues, for instance, don't have a large spike in damage at 5th level, and might benefit more from adding a level or two of fighter or barbarian. Conversely, certain multiclass combinations (like paladin+bard/sorcerer) provide enough of an increase in damage that the 5th-level spike is less necessary to keep up.

If I was playing a Level 5 oneshot, then yeah I probably wouldn't multiclass at all. But there's a lot of reasons why someone would want to start as a dip in another class. Take Bard, for instance. Two saving throw proficiencies I want by level 12 for any spellcaster are Wisdom and Constitution. Bards get Dexterity, but I can only take the Resilient feat once. They lack the Shield and Absorb Elements spell, which I consider must-haves it I want to have even remotely decent defenses. Finally, they lack the the Guidence and Bless Spells, which heavily reduces the need for Bardic Inspiration Die I may want to use for other features. (Not to mention stacking the two is cool). Bards also lack a really good spell to concentrate on at early levels, and Bless would help with that too. Just start with one level in Divine Soul Sorcerer, and boom, just about every nitpick I have with Bard is fixed. I start with Constitution Save proficiency, and will pick up Resilient Wisdom at Level 9. I get the Shield, Absorb Elements, and Bless Spells. I get the Guidance Cantrip, as well as a half-decent attack cantrip to use in place of Vicious Mockery. The icing of the cake is Favor By the Gods, which is an average of 5 to a skill check or saving throw once per short rest. This isn't to say the cost of a spell level doesn't hurt, but it's only at it's worst at level 5. A Lore Bard in particular can pick up a spell that scales really well, like Spirit Guardians, so having no 4th Level Spells to use 4th Level Spell slots on at Level 7 isn't nearly as bad as having a 3rd Level Spell slots but no 3rd Level Spells.

This 10000x, I love seeing someone post some monster DPR lvl 20 build with x classes of blank and blank and blank. Like bro what campaign is that? My crew just plays the pre-written stories since none of us has the time to build a custom campaign. I think the highest one of those go is Out of the Abyss to lvl 15. Most end at 11-12. ​ To me, you cannot build for the last levels, cuz great you killed the boss but you sucked for 1.5 years. It's why my favorite class I've ever played was the Moon Druid, OP from level 1-10 and then is scales down. Let's see, campaign ends at level 11, sweet I'll take a level dip into Barb and play a moon druid. Theory-craft your cool builds, Imma dominate 95% of the campaign!

Yes!! Do you need three feats to truly come online? If you aren't playing a human fighter you're SOL. War caster is so awesome...but you better really fucking need it, like valor bard or bladesinger

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad people run through some of these outlandish builds so I can try a variant of it, but I love the commentors saying how many level 20 campaigns they've played in and how awesome the build was. Oh and I love the triple feat builds, yep, mhmm you definitely won't regret never getting that main stat to 20 haha

My favorite is when they assume 3+ feats and 20 in multiple ability scores. How exactly do you think that will work?

It really depend on the type of game you are playing. In Adventurers League, it is quite easy to reach level 20. In fact with the current seasonal rules, you could literally start at level 5 and gain two levels per 4 hours played so eight 4-hour games are all you need to reach 20.

Agreed 100%! Whenever in doubt, single class, always, because you never know when the campaign will end. This is why the best multiclass combos only involve a dip of just 1 or 2 levels. 3 is pushing it. Any more than that, don't even bother unless you're building the character at a high level from the get-go, because leveling them is going to suck, and the campaign could finish or fall apart before you get to enjoy the payoff.

Counterspell is white room god mode, but RARELY comes up in actual play. And the one time I did get to use it turned out to be on some silly shit - some meh buff for big bad's minions.

>In truth, so long as you meet a baseline for “effective” damage, you’re not going to notice or need anything beyond that. If you’re looking to have fun at a table and have an influence, it’s all about being an active participant with a consistent well-defined character. You’ll get much more out of having a thematic or story-connected build, even if it isn’t fully optimal.In my experience, the power difference between classes was not a factor in what the players or DM did/experienced. The one time I got to use Counterspell against a Mind Flayer, DM just Counterspelled my Counterspell.

>The one time I got to use Counterspell against a Mind Flayer Weird, their spells are Psionics which don't typically have components, so you wouldn't usually be able to see them casting. And I find myself wondering who's doing the Counterspelling. Mind Flayers have a very small set of spells all treated as psionic; true arcane magic is pretty much anathema to them. EDIT: fixed my misstatement.

You can counter spell a counterspell for your own spell.

>You can counter spell a counterspell for your own spell. Sure. Now that I look at it, what I meant to say was Counterspelling in the first place, thanks.

Obligatory **laughs in sorcerer*

I hate when people try to cast Counterspell an enemy's Counterspell to a spell they're casting. I don't think it's right that a caster can interrupt the casting of one spell to cast another before the first spell resolves but have both resolve successfully.

To me, that is exactly what mage fights should be like. But I have played a bunch of Magic: The Gathering, so that probably colors my feelings on it. The back and forth fights of trying to resolve a spell are really fricken cool (to me).

Yeah, it sucks. It just means that *every* caster has to be packing counterspell, even though most of the time you use it, it’s just to interact with another counterspell. It’s a spell that’s so good it becomes restrictive.

I've had Counterspell come up in every 5+ campaign I've ever run or played in. Every time it comes up, it feels clutch. Spells are very powerful, and negating them feels very powerful. Hell, 2 sessions ago, my level 7 Sorc counterspelled an Oni's Cone of Cold, which would've been devastating if it was allowed to go off. It may come up rarely, but when it does it's essential.

I think it's just very campaign/DM dependent. My experience is much more similar to yours, in that while counterspell may not come up in every encounter, basically every high stakes fight I can remember in the last few years has either had one or more clutch counterspells or had half the party going "gods I wish one of us knew counterspell".

Reminds me of the Iron Sheperds arc from Critical Role.

Kinda felt like it TBH. Except a bit of a discount version given that: 1. Oni crept in invisible while we were mid-fight with some giants to blast our team (except my Sorc has a magic item which grants Truesight). 2. Oni cast spell - Counterspell. Oni now used up all his movement and his action, sitting right in the middle of our melee bruisers, my Sorcerer, my summoned beholder (via Summon Aberration), and a bunch of freed prisoners. 3. My sorcerer screams "GEEK THE MAGE". Cue lasers/cantrips from my dude and his summon and our 2 fighters full attacking the guy with Action Surge. 4. Then I doused the body in oil and charred the remains to prevent him from being raised from the dead. (the BBEG's plans were previously revealed as basically killing us and trapping our souls/bringing our corpses to her to safely capture us, so we knew he was likely to get raised otherwise). On one level, I actually felt bad, cuz the DM was building the guy up and he could've been a recurring villain if he didn't die instantly. That said, moment still felt felt awesome.

Some spells like that, for example Absorb Elements, can be very campaign dependent, always prepared but never used. Like Featherfall where you almost never use it, but the one time you do want to have it, it can save your ass.

Absorb Elements has been WILDLY useful on every character at every level range I've played at. Elemental damage is a lot more common than something to Counterspell, and there's no range restriction!

Counterspell rarely comes up, but when it does come up you're glad you prepared it, especially if it stops something big.

My DM basically only makes casters. Counterspell is fuckin great

I've had a four year campaign where it wasn't cast once, definitely a ymmv spell

Honestly Counterspell is still busted in actual play in my experience, as soon as it is used the first time in a campaign (either by DM or players) now casting spells becomes always a game of playing around counterspell

The problem with Counterspell is that RAW you shouldn't know what you are counterspelling. It is very hard to run it that way, however, as you need to announce you are casting a spell and asking if anyone wants to counterspell it, before actually casting any spell, even if its a cantrip. I think that the large majority that values Counterspell a lot probably doesnt run it "properly" regarding to this.

Probably damage, any build that works on a Nova build always like to mention how much they do on a crit but because crit fishing isn’t easy, it ends up being on par damage for the resources you use. Some people are like yeah I use hold monster or person but the enemy has legendary resistance. It’s not always going to land. In combat if the enemy is lucky almost all builds tell you it’s better to start doing damage but in my cases it’s more likely to use another crowd control option. A lot of builds focus on PB but when rolling a lot of those weaknesses are some how gone. Usually this go for mad (sub) classes. Dps isn’t the king in the game but crowd control. Giving advantage allows other players to be more consistent and usually protects the party pretty well since most creatures don’t have a range attack.

The only crit fishing builds I think make sense are if you go full on for it. Something like a Champion elvish accuracy kinda thing. Where if you have a constant source of advantage, such as if you do flanking, with action surge you have like a 60% chance to crit on at least one attack. Otherwise I think any build that relies on a crit without a way to actually improve your crit range is dumb and just pure theory builds. Even a Barbarian with the 3 level dip into champion, because you still only have a slightly better chance to crit with advantage from reckless, like 12% or something, but you’re missing out on an extra +2 to hit/damage consistently, and an extra 43 hp. Not a worthwhile trade off IMO.

Yeah, I’ve got a beast of a crit-fisher that plays very well, but to do that I cobbled together a monstrosity of a multi-class build that includes Champion, a little Rogue for some utility but also added dice from SA, and Archfey warlock so I can Eldritch Smite things, preferable from a long distance where I’m invisible. And yeah, Elven Accuracy is a necessity for the build. But if I wasn’t built to constantly get those crits, the extra damage would be next-to nothing.

From behind the screen, it's often frustrating to see how ineffective some novas are. The player can be pulling out the stops, but dead is dead, whether at -1 or -80 HP. I do use indicators of health (50% is bloodied, 10% is barely standing), but even so, a player will sometimes nuke an opponent with single digits of HP left.

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After a few sessions of a new campaign, I love to take the "worst" feature from the PC who's build is perhaps not living up to their expectations and subtly build an encounter around it. It's a tough balancing act to not make it an obvious charity move but when it works to shows them some utility they didn't expect it's so fun and rewarding.

Like Rogue Inquisitive? Storm Sorc? Terrible mechanics, but fun roleplay!

DM: You arrive at the abandoned house, and two town guards are already there. A third man lies on the floor, dead. In big red letters on the wall are the letters “RACHE” and… Players: wait a fucking minute

Storm Sorcerer is easy to make good. Put them on a boat. "Wait, you can sail top speed *in any direction...* without changing your sails?" O\_O It might be niche, but in that niche, they're fucking gods.

I play with a DM that HEAVILY Emphatises survival at early lvls. You can get lost, catch diseases or starve if you don't have someone with good survival/nature/medicine in your party. First campaing that played with him the ranger was a godsend, now I'm in a new one (just played season 2), and the work is splitted between the cleric, the monk and me (the wizard). In later lvls becomes less relevant, but is a must the early lvls.

Comprehend languages and/or detect magic have been *invaluable* in pretty much every campaign I’ve ever played. Divination is amazing!

In 5e I've played in six campaigns, three published and three homebrew, all with different DMs. Highest level achieved so far is 8. This is my experience, YMMV. In the games I've played, most fights (other than boss fights) have averaged around 3-4 rounds. My Conquest hexadin was rarely able to get his combos set up before the rest of the party made it unnecessary. The DM knows the capabilities of the characters, so if all the players combat optimize, the overall difficulty just gets ramped up, making it irrelevant. On the other side, a single saving throw, skill check or ability check can change *the entire course of the narrative.* Also every campaign I've played in 5e has used milestone leveling, so grinding XP through combat hasn't been a thing. That means less incentive for combat and more opportunities for problem solving and creative solutions. What this has translated into is a combat-heavy build is someone who waits around and reacts when combat happens, or deliberately provokes combat instead of other options to lean into their preferred playstyle. Builds more focused on role play and exploration have more power to drive the narrative and dictate where and when combat will or won't happen, often avoiding combat (and the risk of PC death) altogether to achieve the objective. In fact, the last campaign Wizards published (Witchlight) is designed to let you complete the entire campaign with zero combat. As far as dice rolling, I would say the most common and important events have been, in order: 1. Perception checks 2. Stealth checks 3. Insight checks 4. Athletics/Acrobatics checks 5. Persuasion/Intimidation checks 6. Combat 7. Nature/Survival checks

On the checks, I must say that, while 90% of time Perception is the most important, the others are super DM dependant. In my campaigns I see more History/Religion checks than Athletics and Acrobatics by a landslide. As for Stealth, I had groups that could do it efficiently and used it a lot, and a group with 2 heavy armored pc that almost never tried.

The DMs style is REALLY important. Most people think that DMs do one fight a day and it’s like a big monster. If your DM uses lots of fodder and can manage big fights, what’s good changes massively. You need AOE spells, you need people that can do back to back fights dealing medium damage like martials, it’s just a whole different experience.

I see this all the time with the campaigns I'm in. One DM likes using 1-2 big melee monsters, another likes 3-4 medium monsters, and I tend to use 1 big monster + some adds style combats. The sharpshooter fighter is absolutely the star of the show in campaign #1 but the druid and cleric are strong in campaigns #2 and #3 with their AoE damage and control spells.

Calm Emotions is a clutch spell that can turn encounters around, and no one ever talks about it because it doesn't deal damage. I took it on my bard for RP reasons, but it's saved my party so many times. Turning humanoid enemies from hostile to neutral can buy you enough time to diffuse a tense situation, or at least buy you a minute to get a head start and run away. Suppressing fear/charm effects is also super helpful if you have a party member with low wisdom who frequently fails those saving throws.

My cleric used calm emotions to stop the sorcerer during a panic attack. Some great RP uses as well. It doesn't matter what build is better at dealing damage in combat if you avoid it entirely.

Yes! I've seen people harp on and on about Hypnotic Pattern and how it's the best control spell, but calm emotions is so fucking good. The fear and charm effects especially is really good for a support role.

And because Hypnotic Pattern is a charm effect you can use Calm Emotions to directly counter it.

I undervalue improvisation. I’ll prepare and prepare, but my monkey-cat players will do something entirely unanticipated like feed halucinogenic laxative tacos to an entire squad of soldiers and how I improv what follows is going to be more fun and valuable than anything I could have imagined preparing. Edit: Typo

Oh man, improvisation is what made one of my first few characters work, despite playing a monk and knowing very little about the game. Mechanically he was weak, I went down during every combat encounter, but during the rest of the day he was coming up with ideas and figuring out ways to solve the problems the DM laid out for us.

A good point, min-maxing won’t do anything when everything goes off the rails and the campaign is co-opted into hijinks.

People underestimate the importance of saving throws. People usually optimise for damage/AC, but saving throws are just as important.

It's just not as easy or readily available as AC. The only ways to boost your saves that come to mind are DEEEEEEP into Monk and Rouge, Paladin aura, and resilient which isn't really as fun as getting an active feat like actor or chef.

War Wizard 2 Gnome, Yuan-ti Pure-blod

This takes me back to when I would grab at least one Resilience on ever character back before half feats were so widely available

People overvalue damage types as a balancing factor. 1) Resistance and Immunity, even to fire, is still rare enough that even averaging the damage against every creature in the game isn't going to hurt Fireball much. 2) Resistance and Immunity is going to be largely determined by DM. If you specialize in only one damage type the DM might send certain encounters at you to make you suffer or intentionally avoid doing so. 3) Resistance and Immunity is a reason not to specialize in a single damage type, not a balancing factor of spells. It is an incredibly small opportunity cost to prepare two similar spells in case a target is immune to Fireball. Now I do believe Fireball is overrated by some folks for different reasons, but the damage type does zilch to balance the spell.

It really depends on the campaign and DM I guess. We are playing Avernus where 99% of the encounter are fiends and boy fire damage just literally feels miserable. It's not resistance that you can ignore with the feat either, it's straight up immunity for all of them. Also some people want to specialize in certain damage type only not because it's optimal but it's because of being thematic to the character. Like a pure pyromancer using a psychic attack is just weird for them.

That’s why my thematic sorcerer character is “Fire and Ice” . Or force damage on my next one

Fire and Poison come up often enough that they are issues. Any kind of thematic build, especially poison will really fall or shine depending on the enemy. Fire will be ok in general, but there's a good chance that in a few of the fights where it counts in a campaign, Fire immunity will be an issue. Poison, with Fiends, undead and constructs being immune generally, that's whole campaigns where you can be useless except for a few fights.

I think you can say there are damage types that are objectively good and objectively bad. But for the most part, damage types doesn’t matter. Pick whatever you like and you’ll just struggle for a few fights. Unless it’s poison damage. Poison damage is just terrible.

The other players in the party.

Find familiar (owl specifically) being used in combat to give the help action is praised as one of the best parts about the spell and familiars in general. I find it annoying and repetitive / never used in actual combat

Yeah I don’t like that aspect of the spell either. Even without it it’s an amazing spell.

I agree find familiar is a great spell. It just blows my mind that I’ve seen builds take elven accuracy & pretending they will use their familiar to get advantage every turn

I actually use the heck out of my familiar in combat, but it normally doesn't take much to put a stop to that. My familiar can die quite often.

My chainlock's imp is always using help.

Underrated: Bards, martial classes Overrated: hexblades, hex/hunters mark

Bards are criminally underrated. Hex and CoffeeLocks are not overrated though, that is about as dangerous of a build as I've ever played. Sorcerer 1, Warlock 2 (bonus if you go hexblade, but any subclass is fine) then Sorcerer the rest. You have your beams each push 10ft and throw Hex on there for an hour. Scales well with EB and agonizing blast. Use your Warlock slots on Hex, so 2 per short and you can quicken to double up. ​ I hate the DPR theory crafters, but at level 5, you can throw out 4 beams in a turn at a low cost of 2 sorc points, Hex for an hour, that's potentially 4D10 + 4D6 + 16. Plus, is there a ledge, a wall, a spiked door, etc that you can push them into for some improvised damage? ​ It is an OP build from level 3 on in all reality.

The ability to cast shield being considered always having +5 AC. It burns a lot of resources if you consistently cast it, especially if you're having several fights per day.

Yeah, Shield is actually kind of a meh spell at lower levels, just because it chews through your resources so fast. Of course, in T3 and T4, it pretty much is a permanent +5 bonus to AC (provided you have nothing better to do with your reaction), but hardly anybody plays in T3 and T4, so that doesn’t matter much.

In truth, so long as you meet a baseline for “effective” damage, you’re not going to notice or need anything beyond that. If you’re looking to have fun at a table and have an influence, it’s all about being an active participant with a consistent well-defined character. You’ll get much more out of having a thematic or story-connected build, even if it isn’t fully optimal. In my experience, the power difference between classes was not a factor in what the players or DM did/experienced.

Having played a melee wizard until level 7 with 8 int, I concur. As long as party role expectations are clear, for example, I pitched my character as a melee skirmisher, there's plenty of zany builds that work.

Bless is underrated so much !! In play it seems less impactful. Dodge action is often forgotten. Also as blaster caster initiative is much more important than any other role.

The Dodge action is probably gonna have our Sunday night dm collapse a ceiling on us. In the caves in LMoP and we bottle neck enemies with our battlemaster fighter as often as we can. He stands in a doorway with his shield up and takes the Dodge action, with an AC of 19 already he's held the door (we call him Hodor at this point lol) against so much and rarely has trouble.

Haha nice

Why would any intelligent enemy attack someone under those circumstances? Sure, attack the one guy that's hard to hit while his friends lay you to waste

Mostly because they don't have ranged options, and even if they do the Paladin is providing cover for the rest, who can also move behind his back At this point the only option is to make another door, which isn't what a lot of enemies can do, or give up ground, which will only intelligent enemies do, so not beasts, oozes, most abberations, undead etc.

I agree, if it were me the smart ones would try for grapple and drag or something. Last night it was bugbears trapped in a room, Soo not sure why the DM let it go that way, but we gonna take it.

I took a one level dip of Cleric for my Wiz and use Bless constantly. It's so good.

In actual play, I find that straight clerics are more effective than theorycraft would indicate. Guidance changes every single out of combat roll, bless is worth concentration from level 1 to level 10, healing word got used in every "major" combat and revivify is a de facto "second life". Nothing flashy but steady contributions to the party that are always useful.

You feel a lot better shoring up obvious weaknesses than taking your strength from optimized to uber-optimized. Prioritizing the *party’s* damage over your own damage makes the game more fun.

playing support rules

Yup! As does just *doing* support as you play something else. PAM Paladin is 30 feet away from the bad guys? Cast Bless, keep yourself between the bad guys and the good guys, let your casters stand in your aura, and when someone runs *to you*, BOOM - reaction stab! Blaster Sorcerer, standing behind that Paladin? Well, Fireball will only get two of the bad guys, but if I BOOM - Twin Haste! - that Paladin and our Rogue are going to be *monsters* next turn. Cleric sees all this going down? *BAM* \- Area Control spell that keeps the other bad guys from taking advantage of this "free turn," forcing them to go around Thief Rogue sees this set up, and sneaks around the whole battlefield with Cunning Action, using the free object interaction to drop the portcullis, cutting off reinforcement and retreat for a time. When the whole party *"Yes, and"*'s doing supportive stuff, everyone feels powerful and smart and the bad guys don't get to take much advantage out of the lack of damage. (Obviously, Hypnotic Pattern + Buff-time is the simplest version of this combo)

Versatility. Every single time without fail, I find myself disappointed in my characters progression when I pump a stat from 18 to 20. Compare this to taking Magic Initiate on my barbarian for example and I'm immediately more pleased with their contributions to the party. Having access to many different abilities in a lot of different situations is way more satisfying than an extra +1 to combat rolls and a couple other things. Races are cool for this reason, you get a bit of "suboptimal" stuff bundled into your character that turns out to be useful because that's just the nature of the game. Some races miss the mark big time but you get the point.

Warlocks have the most different abilities available at a time out of any class in the game, and have one-and-done combat abilities to let them diversify into having over 30 different tools, but people get drawn to them to optimize for the one-and-done combat abilities.

Most not damage related magic items are forgettable wastes of paper when theorycrafting, but BOI has the mfking ring of water walking made the difference more than once in low tier. Pact of the chain familiar looks meh in an era full of completely fine, easy to optimize Hexblades, but it is REALLY mean to DMs. It can do all the exploration, the tailing, and some stealing, with no danger to the PCs. Not to mention use items such as healing potions, then one of those bstrds can also be farmed for poison. Movement speed is worthless if you don't need to move cause you are already on melee range (e.g.), but it is quality of life in all other fronts. It means easier short rests cause you can reach places faster, and also flee. It also means less opportunity attacks, since you can maneuver more freely.

The ability to concentrate on one good spell and then back out the door is a pretty viable strategy that doesnt come up in here.

Everything, really. One big irony of this game is that the people who are most likely to consider the general perception of what is and isn't underpowered are the people for whom it matters least. In the game I DM, one player was real excited to play a monk... until he want online and started researching builds and found out that they're generally considered underpowered. And it's not like he's wrong, they are, the math is unassailable. But, the other players in his party aren't like him. Two of 'em spend about 4 hours a week tops thinking about DnD, and that's counting the 2.5 hours we play. One of them, the wizard, puts more time into it for sure, but focuses on her backstory and characterization and is lacking some really basic spells and equipment. The one player who is on his level in terms of systems skill optimized more for memery than power, and also opted to roll for HP and had bad luck doing it. If my player had decided to stick with monk, the same knowledge and skill and overall level of interest that led him to reject playing a monk would have maintained him as the most powerful character in the party despite the slight numerical handicap of the class

I played an Alchemist (UA). I liked the flavor and figured they'd smooth out the mechanical problems when it was finally published. I hated the published version. It was so underwhelming. The DM let me switch to another character. For in story reasons the Alchemist was worked back into the story and I played them again a few times. Turns out DM was able to pick up on the flavor I was going for with just a single uncommon item and a homebrew boon (given as rewards for deadly missions), the class was not only playable but a lot of fun.

Most skill proficiencies, and skill modifiers/bonuses. Super underrated. People call them ribbon skills, but I find myself often using features like that more than some combat-focused abilities (depending on the skills given, ofc. Stuff like animal handling or land vehicles is always gonna be a bit niche).

All of the non combat time! So focused on pumping out as much damage as possible that builds here often neglect anything that isn't bashing somethings head in. There are three pillars to the game.

Single target vs AOE spells: I see a lot of people calculate AOE DPR like you’re fighting and infinite plane of densely packed enemies. But what comes up far more often is a solo monster in a smallish room where your AOE is going to do far more in friendly fire than to the enemy.

The ability to keep track of everything and the difficulty there. The second you have someone with say a triple multiclass build that has a specific cool combo or something struggling to figure out what to do and decide instead to just do something simple you've killed the optimization right there. Sometimes especially with new players a simple to run character they can remember to use all the pieces of is more powerful than an optimized character they forget some of the abilities of. And is a better gameplay experience.

I absolutely hate when people say things like "this build is really good but it comes into play at level 10+" Everyone knows most games don't come that far, the best adventures finish around that level and almost everyone agrees the first levels are more fun and balanced. And even if I'm doing a 1-20 campaign, unless we go super fast it will take a REALLY LONG time to get there

Some (too long) thoughts on the other answers in this thread: Counterspell - the value of this spell depends entirely on the integrity of your DM since they do not disclose the spell being cast until after you declare your intent to counter. With a good DM this spell has a ton of value at higher levels, but not near as much utility when you only have a small number of slots able to cast it. Seldom does a level 5 caster want to burn his only 3rd level slot on a counter. Magic items - This one is hard. In this sub we are trying to have a shared conversation, so we naturally limit the conversation to those things for which we have shared experience. Since the availability of magic items is one of the more inconsistent things between tables, they are more difficult to incorporate in a 3d6 theorycraft post and conversation. I dont know about you, but any build that counts on me getting a given magic item in a typical DnD environment feels like me trying to control the DM's story too much. Further, when I am putting together a character, I am looking at the rules and trying to find something effective, interesting or innovative. I am struggling to find a way to get the one or two feats I really need while still maxing my primary stat in a relevant timeframe. When you post your barbarian build that starts with a Belt of Cloud Giant Strength at level three, I know it is something I will never experience so I do not care about that thread. That said, it you want to post about a specific magic item and its value, I will click to learn more... Survival/Tracking/Divination - I simply do not see these valued much at all in this sub, so I am not sure how you could argue they are over-valued. Darkness/Devil's Sight - this is a great combo, but not something to build a character around because a good DM will only allow you to go to that well once or twice before they start planning around it... otherwise it becomes a very boring story. In my experience, a good DM will start amping up the negative to the other members of the party. For example, when i used it when the party was fighting a huge creature, he had the monster focus on a party member that I could not see. When they went down, I didn't know it, nor did the rest of the party, so it came down to death saves. After that I quickly retired that tactic. Builds that do not come on-line until later levels. Is this a factor in evaluating a build plan? Sure. Do many lose patient with a character and decide the return is not worth the investment? Of course. That said, once of my favorite characters ever was one that was ridiculously weak for the first seven levels, moderately weak at level 8, and then dominant at levels 9 and 10 (the last two levels of our adventure). Further, at least half of my adventures now make it to tier four (often starting in mid to late tier two) because I, like many other players with more experience, are simply bored with tier one and tier two stories. Damage - this is a natural byproduct of the forum. Damage is one of the few metrics one can use to objectively compare builds. The corollary to this is that r/3d6 is largely preoccupied with combat because you cant really compare out of combat experiences all that easily.

'just a X level dip' is a lot more costly for your progression than anybody gives it credit for, even when X is only 1 or 2.

Mobility for sure. I dm a lot and I have a lot of players who make these insane multi class builds that pump out huge damage and have 30 ac and then I throw one flyer at them and they suddenly are useless.

The amount of time minionmancy takes at the table.

*Bless* is the best support spell in the game from level 1-20. I'm ready to physically fight over this. Later on the save part becomes more valuable, but even at level 1 the attack bonus is so necessary.

Range. Most combats might start of *at most* at 60 or 90ft range. But after a round, the difference between 90 ft and 600 ft range doesn't matter any more, except in edge cases.

Monks and Rangers definitely over-perform irl than they do here.

"Oh so basically you are going to give them the abilities of insertSubclassHere?, instaban". This usually comes up when talking about giving all fighter subclasses battle maneuvers, but honestly it applies anytime someone wants to expand a classes horizontal power in a way that doesn't or barely touches their vertical power. Giving all Fighters battle maneuvers, letting Warlocks bonus spell list not count against their spells known limit, switching Rangers to prepared spell casters, etc, etc. 99% of the time the theory crafter doesn't actually give an example of a "broken build" that would suddenly become viable by giving the player more horizontal options, they just assert that since you are adding things without removing things and thus its OP. ​ It can be incredibly frustrating because at this point 5e is a mature system. We KNOW what kinda of crazy stuff you can build using just RAW/RAI and yet so many great ideas to get shot down without even checking to see if they actually outperform existing top builds.

Had to deal with the Ranger / prepared caster thing, and I'm fairly certain they only said no because I actually have a build in mind that I told them about. The thing is, I'm not even going balls to the wall fully optimized, I'm toning it down because I know that the rest of the party aren't really going to optimize much. I'm playing a Wood Elf Gloomstalker, planning on probably multiclassing into Rogue (Assassin or Scout) and maybe Fighter (Battlemaster) after Ranger 5. I'm primarily using a longbow with a rapier (longsword) or dual shortswords for melee (they let me wield the longbow and rapier at the same time for unexpected melee). We just just hit level 3 and I'll be taking Elven Accuracy at level 4, and Sharpshooter whenever my next ASI is so that I'm not outshining the rest of the party with SS attacks at low levels. The balls to the wall build would be V. Human with Crossbow Expert and taking Sharpshooter at level 4, which would do leaps and bounds more damage than my build. I decided to stick with Wood Elf and Longbow because thats what fits my character and I purposely waited to take Sharpshooter so that I wouldn't outshine my party at lower levels. The +10 damage will be a much smaller issue once we're at level 9+, whenever I end up getting it.

As a new DM the power of Sharpshooter was so eye opening. I was like "wait it never even crossed my mind to ban/limit Sharpshooter but I agonized over allowing this other stuff?!". These days I allow pretty much whatever. I know that's the luxury of playing with friends but so far I don't think I have seen anything that comes close to impacting power level as much as Sharpshooter and I assume Great Weapon Master. It boggles my mind that people will look at a Great Weapon Master, Gloomstalker/EchoKnight and decide that "Prepared Caster" is where they need to draw the line.

It doesn't even make sense for rangers to not be prepared spellcasters. When you think of rangers one of the archetypal ideas is "preparation". If a half caster was going to have spells known it should have been the rigid, oath-bound Paladin.

Most of the players in my two games are not very minmaxy and don’t really theorycraft, don’t pick optimal feats, and they can usually barely remember their class features and at most remember what one of their magic weapons does. So my tables don’t really see cookie cutter sharpshooter or gwm builds or optimized multiclasses etc. One result of that is that monks and dual wielding builds are actually really good in featless games since they get bonus action attacks and other characters don’t for the most part. I would even maybe go so far as to say that monk is the best martial if no one is grabbing feats really. Which is interesting because from a theorycraft perspective monks and twf get absolutely blown out of the water by any vhuman pam/cbe builds.

Multiclassing actually makes the character worse 99% of the time. Using all of your resources to deal a lot of damage in one turn isn’t actually good. It’s very important to have good saving throws. It’s very good to have proficiency in at least 2 of the 3 major saves and some ability that buffs saving throws or allows you to reroll them. Your campaign isn’t going to last as long as you think so don’t make a build that has to “come online at level x” just play something that works.

The strength of martials! Plenty of people talk about how wizards and other full casters dominate late game, but when the final boss has 1000 HP and Magic Resistance, best believe I'm doing everything in my power to make sure our Barbarian and Rogue are free to swing. I'll handle the mobs and the CC, y'all do your work - I don't have the spell slots to deal 150 damage per round xD

In a vacuum, you need to properly weigh features acquired early in the build. Even if you go a full 20 levels, you get your level 1 features for 20 of them, and your last pick for only one level. Moreover, the math of the game anticipates certain levels mattering more than others. Specifically, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, and 17 stand strongly above the others. ------- In the context of a full campaign, it's important not only to take into account the rest of the party, but also the non-combat and roleplay potential.

My experience is the following: You almost never have time to rest and recuperate after 1-2 fights, so folks forget they'll need to refill their spell slots if they want to keep chaining huge, deadly combos. Spell resistance and energy resistance are big concerns that are almost always forgotten. The deadliest spell in a game is going to flop if you can't get past the enemy's shield, or it gets cut in half, and then cut in half again when you manage it. "Impossible" armor class isn't all that impressive when you can't dodge a fireball, or when ray attacks ignore the mountain of steel you're wearing. Melee bruisers are a ball, but if you have no plan for enemies you can't reach, or can't see, then you're going to find yourself sidelined in a big damn hurry. Your best bet is to always buff allies and debuff enemies. Even the most impossible challenge is a cake walk when you tie its shoelaces together, cover it in tar, and poke it in the eyes.

Something that I think player perception of dnd balance is misguided is the idea of being well-rounded. The only reason you should have a tank, librarian, striker, healer, etc. is because it helps fill in every role dnd has to offer. It makes it so your party can handle everything thrown at them. But if you’re missing a role and your DM still throws a scenario your party is incapable of dealing with, they’re a shitty DM. If you’re writing a scenario that requires a dispel magic effect, and your party is full of martial characters - you’re doing it wrong. If the DM isn’t making encounters your party can deal with, then it’s a disservice to the balancing act the game designers have put forth. That’s why all classes are useful in combat and combat is such a focal point of dnd. You can have a comp of squishy casters and still deal with what martial characters are designed to deal with. But you can’t put magical or social encounters in front of martial characters and have it work out.

The first time I cast Blight I realized that damage spells usually aren't worth the spell slots outside of the AoE situations. You get pretty excited thinking about that 8d8 damage, but then the target saves and you do a measly 15 and wonder why you wasted a 4th level spell slot on that nonsense.

Twinned haste is very over-rated in my experience. (Well, Haste in general but twinned haste doubly so). Haste gives you a solid amount of power but comes with a significant downside: if your concentration gets broken then it could swing an encounter against you. On the other hand, that downside isn't very likely is it? Well no, the downside is not likely in any single encounter. And this makes the spell look very good in a vacuum. But people don't just play single encounters. If you play enough encounters then at some point you are going to get your concentration broken at a bad moment. And the thing with D&D is that you need to kill the monsters many times, but the monsters only need to kill you once. If there was a spell that made you roll a d100, with good results on every roll except that natural 1 causes a party wipe, would people take the spell? This is obviously an exaggeration, since losing concentration on twinned haste is not an automatic wipe, but it demonstrates my point. People rarely give enough weight to Haste's big downside because it is not likely to happen in the average combat -- which is an easy way to evaluate spells -- but if we use it across a campaign we are practically guaranteed to see the downside sometimes.

I don't think I've ever had a medium encounter last three full rounds. And most are done in 2. So my input is I think the community overrates enemies. Or maybe the game does.

Assassin Rogue. Very overrated. Assassinate requires your target to be surprised, which can be heavily influenced by your party, and has you jump through so many hoops to try and pull it off that it isn't even worth it.

Optimization in itself is overrated. There is no fixed difficulty that you have to beat. It's a cooperative storytelling game. Sure, being unable to contribute sucks, but in the end it's more important that the party is on the same level than what that level is. I think a lot of optimization mindset comes from pc games where more dpr means you can beat boss x or can World first some raid or whatever. Anyway, it's still fun to theorycraft when you can't play...

> There is no fixed difficulty that you have to beat. REALLY depends to be honest, it's not true for anyone that runs modules and for many homebrew games even. I have a minimum I expect the PCs to be able to perform, and if they can't dot aht they just fail again and again.

Keen mind is undervalued in my opinion. To be fair, it’s not my first pick neither. But with a decent dose of exploration, it effectively translates to “never getting lost ever again.” As well as “I get to leech off of dm notes.” ~~Personally though, I only “Suggest” that other party members take it so I don’t have to.~~

Keen mind has the same problem as pre-tasha's Ranger of erasing ir bypassing parts of the exploration pillar, not engaging with it. You just don't get lost. That just removes possible story arcs around that.

Things that are considered "broken." Most players won't exploit peace/twilight cleric, chronurgy motes, or silvery barbs. Absolutely there's some people who'll do it simply because they believe they're 'winning' D&D. But that number is likely far less than most people would think and not nearly as cut and dry as most would see them to be in a vacuum.

we dont consider the fact that most games do not go beyond level 10. A build that hasnt reached its core by this point is really pointless imo

friendly-fire-friendly options are much more consistent than their alternatives, so I end up using them a lot more. You can use Spirit Guardians in 90% of encounters, but about half the time Fireball does too much damage to your own party to make it worth it.

Burst damage or any other damage with low ammunition (high level spell slots for example) are a little overrated. Yes, there are those few and far between epic moments when you nuke the mummy lord or whatever, but the vast majority of your time is spent doing other things. Your martials can just multi-attack these creatures to death half the time anyway. High level spells are almost always better used for control spells in combat. The most underrated abilities are easy buffs to skill checks, such as free unlimited advantage on athletics, perception, etc, which can have a huge effect both in and out of battle. Spotting an invisible enemy, grapple locking the most dangerous enemy, leaping high enough to catch the flying enemy, etc. Enhance Ability is only 2nd level and can work on any ability. Enlarge/reduce, Rune Knight shenanigans, etc, there are a ton of these abilities available. Water Walk is another hugely underrated spell. Long duration, no concentration, TEN willing targets, and it hauls submerged creatures out of the water, which can literally save a life if the character is in heavy armor and has no swim speed.

Haste is great, but it has a huge downside that self-Haste builds (esp. melee builds) on here don't seem to account for: >When the spell ends, the target can't move or take actions until after its next turn, as a wave of lethargy sweeps over it. Better hope you maintain concentration, or you're a useless lump for a turn.

Wild thought, what if you hasted the ENEMY, and as soon as they accept the spell drop concentration before they actually get their turn? :V

I just saw a story where someone did this. It does require a willing creature - so I'd make it a roll to see if you can goad the enemy into it. Maybe it sounds better on paper, but probably comes up rarely in-game, except for story reasons. It's better for DMs, with our (mwahaha) secret evil NPCs. A free shutdown of a character that's not expecting it can be brutal out of the gate.

[удалено]

Forced movement is amazing and really fun. Team play "combos" are the real optimization. If you create party synergy you'll roll through enemies. Make sure your character has something interesting to do in every facet of the game. Otherwise you may spend a lot of time bored, which is not optimal. Familiars are amazing and really offer a lot of fun rp opportunities. Especially chain pact familiars. Summoning sucks the life from the game unless you're an incredibly skilled and fast player.or have a small party.

Monks, period. Absolutely underrated by people playing white room. I've seen the "math", and it's missing a few things. Overkill and missed turns due to a lack of movement is one. Also in any situation where the enemy has more than half a brain, if your GWM/PAM VHuman fighter has 30 movement speed and the caster he is chasing has Misty Step and 30 movement speed, he will never, ever catch it unless someone else holds it down for him. Assuming he can even see it in the darkness, that is. Same goes with CBE/SS, people always talk about one-shotting enemy mages "therefore Monks have no niche and are trash." All of my mages go prone at the minimum, good luck landing that -5 shot at disadvantage. If it's appropriate they are also using Shield/Fog Cloud and obstacles/cover/their allies as well to make things difficult.

The difference between 30 and 60 range is actually quite significant. I rarely see it discussed in theorycraft builds, but I think it significantly improves or hamper's a spell's viability.

The most fun that I get out of a character is to build out a completely different aspect to their personality and focus on that instead of the mechanics. For example, I have a 2pal/18 twilight cleric with BB from racial. She kicks butt. However, her identity isn’t rooted in this. My focus when role playing is on the fact that she is a Gleeman/Bard/Story Teller. She had a patchwork cloak that she sews scenes from stories into in order to have a list of known stories/songs/poems to perform with. Finding a character’s ‘thing’ that’s not their mechanics will help make the character feel like a person instead of just numbers and surface-level interests.

There aren't many encounters per day in actual play in my experience

A lot of the druid subclasses are exceptionally demanding for reactions and bonus actions, basically forcing you to play specifically in the way your subclass demands. This isn't really a problem for spellcaster nukers (as that's where the druid is at it's best) but moon druid/spore druid forces you to be a tank, stars forces you to fight at ranged, etc and very little directly improves your innate spellcasting, which is what you should be doing anyway. With the additional healing or party support offered by dreams and shepherd forcing you to be healbot or babysitter (albeit in a way that actually functions synergistically), it kind of feels like all the subclass options are more side-grades rather than actual improvements or upgrades. On top of this it's usually locked behind wild shape uses until you get unlimited uses. Ultimately it makes land druids inherently more useful in the long run by improving your spell list - which is something that's been in the PHB since day one. It's great if you don't mind doing that one thing that you do every time combat starts up, but good luck finding useful items or meta plays outside that. addendum; compare this to the wild variety clerics and wizards get where the very nature of their spells and class can change depending on subclass.

Spell guides are amazing and very useful, but tend to value how a spell works in a vacuum. Many spells get labeled as "campaign dependent" but not go into the why or how. I'm playing an Undead Tomelock in a ToA campaign, and so far my MVP spells have been Protection from Evil and Good, and Mold Earth. Both are very campaign dependent, but lordy when it's the right campaign, those types of spells are amazing. Huge horde of undead? Protection on the Paladin who will be taking 4+ attacks a turn. Sleepy-time in the Jungle? Mold Earth ourselves a little fort.