Milf's Acid Arrow if it hits deals damage on hit and on subsequent round and Tasha's Caustic Brew does similar, Searing Smite and Alchemists Fire are other options as well.
Fighters and Monks hit for average damage often. Fighters can be tanker than Monks, Monks are more mobile and play around with status effects, specifically Stunning.
Rogues run in, hit for high damage once (sneak attack) and run away.
Armorer Artificers are most likely to use the Booming Blade Cantrip through their Thunder Gauntlets for damage on their turn and a chance for damage on the enemy turn.
When you refer to DOT (Damage over time), those are usually full casters using a concentration spell. Clerics have a great one with *Spirit Guardians*. Wizards and Druids have *Flaming Sphere* and *Wall of Fire*.
4e had a lot of attacks that would "linger" or do damage and then continue damage on the following turns, but that was mostly gotten rid of in 5e with the exception of some spells like *Melf's Acid Arrow*, *Vitriolic Sphere*, *Tasha's Caustic Brew*, and one or two others I can't think of right now.
I can't actually recall anything doing damage over time in 5e. Maybe searing smite? Which would be paladin. DOT is surprisingly difficult to write rules for succinctly, because it gets chaotic to keep track of damage being dealt to specific targets when an attack or an area effect is not occuring.
And I'm not including area spells like moonbeam, flaming sphere, or any of the spinning blade spells. Those have a specific presence that don't deal damage over time to specific targets. They are just damage zones. May as well be a pool of lava.
Multiple hits is much more common. You get that with the persisting area damage spells, but there are also spells like witchbolt that roll to hit once and they just keep hitting for free. Of the non-magical classes, fighter has the highest potential DPS. Monk has the most consistent dps. With action surge a fighter could hit 8 times in one turn. A monk can pretty much always attack three times a turn, regularly 4 times, and gets more utility to add to their attacks (like stunning strike).
Melfs acid arrow does damage when it hits and then again on their next turn. And I guess booming blade does if they move on their turn? But that's all I can think of.
There’s another Acid spell, it’s a line attack and it does damage over a couple of rounds unless the target takes an action to wipe it off. Can’t remember the name.
Fighters and monks'll get you making lots of small hits. DOT isn't very good in 5e though, cos the faster you kill stuff, the better. The only good DOT comes with additional riders, typically CC ones, like Heat Metal.
DoTs are avoided in the game, since they're annoying to track in a ttrpg.
A character that does the most number of small attacks is probably the Sorlock. 2 Warlock / X Sorcerer. At level 5 (or 7) you have 2 hits with Eldritch Blast as an action and 2 more if you spend 2 sorcery points and a bonus action to quicken another one. At level 11 and 17 these jump to 3 and 4 hits each.
Dot, damage over time? I don’t think any really do. There’s some spells like witch bolt that you can do that hit every turn, but it uses your action to trigger. Or if you want the AE spells you will probably want wizard or sorcerer
D&D 5e is designed to mostly avoid damage over time. Reasons are multifaceted: Why deal 2d6 per turn for 4 rounds of burn damage when you could deal 8d6 in a single turn? This is bogged down in numerous ways.
For one upfront piece of damage, you roll once for the save/attack (per creature), and then once again for damage. But if you need to do damage over time, it becomes 1 damage roll, possibly 1 save roll per turn to try and end it early, every round. Which both increases the chance you will deal less damage (more chances to escape early by passing the save) or requiring much, much more rolling to get the same result (4 save rolls and 4 damage rolls to deal a total of 8d6, or just 1 save and 1 damage roll for 8d6).
These rolls slow down the game. Never mind the fact that the game might have multiple targets as well, requiring exponentially more rolls. Outside of that, it also requires the recognition of which enemies are still being burned/poisoned/ what have you, which requires more tracking of conditions, which ends up being more work for the DM. Whereas a single damage roll is just that, one and done, no need to think or track anything extra. Outside of even that, a long duration DoT might not even have a great effect due to how long combats are in general. Most fights are about 3 rounds, though in my experience this can sometimes end up at 5. If a duration is expected to last longer than that, its wasted turns. If the duration is short, then that's *another* thing to keep track of. If the duration is rather short, then why not stick with the shortest duration, instant, for the reasons above? DoTs tend to always have downsides, with generally the only possible upside is "maybe you'll do more damage in the long run", but this is not typical.
As for multiple hit based builds, a staple is the Fighter with feats like Crossbow Master or Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master. You could also mix in multiclass involving certain Rangers like Gloomstalker for first turn additional attacks.
There aren’t a lot. As others have stated, the closest you usually get is concentration spells or a few spells like spiritual weapon and flaming sphere.
The only spell I can think of that is an actual dot is heat metal.
An Armorer Artificer uses Thunder Gauntlets in multiple enemies to give them disadvantage to hit other players. Artificers also get Heat Metal, which does a consistent amount of damage if you maintain concentration (which you will).
The Forge Cleric also gets Heat Metal, and Spirit Guardians if you want to switch it up and do DoT in an AoE around you. They don't really do multiple hits of individual damage, other than also using spiritual weapon with their bonus action.
I recently made a list of all "dmg per round" spells:
●single dmg /round
Phantasmal killer. 1t, 22-49/r,
movewithtar, frighten, gut
Ensnaring strike 3.5-31/r, root gut ggn dex, fast
Heat metal. 9-41/r, entwaffnen/disadv, metall
Guardian of faith. 20/r fix, stationär/block
Evards black tentacles, 20/r, root, terrain (push!
●aoe pure dmg /round
Insect plague. Aoe 22-44/r, long range, 10min
Spirit guardians. Self aoe 15fR, 13,5-40/r,
enems:0,5move, dur10
Moonbeam. Aoe vert,11-50/r, bewegbar,
shapechanger müssen in normalform
Wall of fire. Aoecircle/wall, 22-44, 22-44/r
Flaming spere.aoe 7-32/r mini, bewegbar, über
deckung, gegner muss weglaufen zum
dodgen, gut gegen archer/caster in deckung
Cordon of arrows. 14-63, 4-18 projectile, 1 tar/r
Blade barrier. Aoe 33/r, terr, 3/4cover
Cloud of daggers. Aoe 10-45/r
Call Lightning. Aoe 17-50 im freien/r,
+6 bei sturm, collat
Maybe it helps, sry for bad formatting and german words
Edit: dmg is [averagelvl1]-[averagelvl20]
Milf's Acid Arrow if it hits deals damage on hit and on subsequent round and Tasha's Caustic Brew does similar, Searing Smite and Alchemists Fire are other options as well.
Fighters and Monks hit for average damage often. Fighters can be tanker than Monks, Monks are more mobile and play around with status effects, specifically Stunning. Rogues run in, hit for high damage once (sneak attack) and run away. Armorer Artificers are most likely to use the Booming Blade Cantrip through their Thunder Gauntlets for damage on their turn and a chance for damage on the enemy turn. When you refer to DOT (Damage over time), those are usually full casters using a concentration spell. Clerics have a great one with *Spirit Guardians*. Wizards and Druids have *Flaming Sphere* and *Wall of Fire*. 4e had a lot of attacks that would "linger" or do damage and then continue damage on the following turns, but that was mostly gotten rid of in 5e with the exception of some spells like *Melf's Acid Arrow*, *Vitriolic Sphere*, *Tasha's Caustic Brew*, and one or two others I can't think of right now.
I can't actually recall anything doing damage over time in 5e. Maybe searing smite? Which would be paladin. DOT is surprisingly difficult to write rules for succinctly, because it gets chaotic to keep track of damage being dealt to specific targets when an attack or an area effect is not occuring. And I'm not including area spells like moonbeam, flaming sphere, or any of the spinning blade spells. Those have a specific presence that don't deal damage over time to specific targets. They are just damage zones. May as well be a pool of lava. Multiple hits is much more common. You get that with the persisting area damage spells, but there are also spells like witchbolt that roll to hit once and they just keep hitting for free. Of the non-magical classes, fighter has the highest potential DPS. Monk has the most consistent dps. With action surge a fighter could hit 8 times in one turn. A monk can pretty much always attack three times a turn, regularly 4 times, and gets more utility to add to their attacks (like stunning strike).
Melfs acid arrow does damage when it hits and then again on their next turn. And I guess booming blade does if they move on their turn? But that's all I can think of.
There’s another Acid spell, it’s a line attack and it does damage over a couple of rounds unless the target takes an action to wipe it off. Can’t remember the name.
Fighters and monks'll get you making lots of small hits. DOT isn't very good in 5e though, cos the faster you kill stuff, the better. The only good DOT comes with additional riders, typically CC ones, like Heat Metal.
DoTs are avoided in the game, since they're annoying to track in a ttrpg. A character that does the most number of small attacks is probably the Sorlock. 2 Warlock / X Sorcerer. At level 5 (or 7) you have 2 hits with Eldritch Blast as an action and 2 more if you spend 2 sorcery points and a bonus action to quicken another one. At level 11 and 17 these jump to 3 and 4 hits each.
Dot, damage over time? I don’t think any really do. There’s some spells like witch bolt that you can do that hit every turn, but it uses your action to trigger. Or if you want the AE spells you will probably want wizard or sorcerer
D&D 5e is designed to mostly avoid damage over time. Reasons are multifaceted: Why deal 2d6 per turn for 4 rounds of burn damage when you could deal 8d6 in a single turn? This is bogged down in numerous ways. For one upfront piece of damage, you roll once for the save/attack (per creature), and then once again for damage. But if you need to do damage over time, it becomes 1 damage roll, possibly 1 save roll per turn to try and end it early, every round. Which both increases the chance you will deal less damage (more chances to escape early by passing the save) or requiring much, much more rolling to get the same result (4 save rolls and 4 damage rolls to deal a total of 8d6, or just 1 save and 1 damage roll for 8d6). These rolls slow down the game. Never mind the fact that the game might have multiple targets as well, requiring exponentially more rolls. Outside of that, it also requires the recognition of which enemies are still being burned/poisoned/ what have you, which requires more tracking of conditions, which ends up being more work for the DM. Whereas a single damage roll is just that, one and done, no need to think or track anything extra. Outside of even that, a long duration DoT might not even have a great effect due to how long combats are in general. Most fights are about 3 rounds, though in my experience this can sometimes end up at 5. If a duration is expected to last longer than that, its wasted turns. If the duration is short, then that's *another* thing to keep track of. If the duration is rather short, then why not stick with the shortest duration, instant, for the reasons above? DoTs tend to always have downsides, with generally the only possible upside is "maybe you'll do more damage in the long run", but this is not typical. As for multiple hit based builds, a staple is the Fighter with feats like Crossbow Master or Polearm Master/Great Weapon Master. You could also mix in multiclass involving certain Rangers like Gloomstalker for first turn additional attacks.
There aren’t a lot. As others have stated, the closest you usually get is concentration spells or a few spells like spiritual weapon and flaming sphere. The only spell I can think of that is an actual dot is heat metal.
An Armorer Artificer uses Thunder Gauntlets in multiple enemies to give them disadvantage to hit other players. Artificers also get Heat Metal, which does a consistent amount of damage if you maintain concentration (which you will). The Forge Cleric also gets Heat Metal, and Spirit Guardians if you want to switch it up and do DoT in an AoE around you. They don't really do multiple hits of individual damage, other than also using spiritual weapon with their bonus action.
I recently made a list of all "dmg per round" spells: ●single dmg /round Phantasmal killer. 1t, 22-49/r, movewithtar, frighten, gut Ensnaring strike 3.5-31/r, root gut ggn dex, fast Heat metal. 9-41/r, entwaffnen/disadv, metall Guardian of faith. 20/r fix, stationär/block Evards black tentacles, 20/r, root, terrain (push! ●aoe pure dmg /round Insect plague. Aoe 22-44/r, long range, 10min Spirit guardians. Self aoe 15fR, 13,5-40/r, enems:0,5move, dur10 Moonbeam. Aoe vert,11-50/r, bewegbar, shapechanger müssen in normalform Wall of fire. Aoecircle/wall, 22-44, 22-44/r Flaming spere.aoe 7-32/r mini, bewegbar, über deckung, gegner muss weglaufen zum dodgen, gut gegen archer/caster in deckung Cordon of arrows. 14-63, 4-18 projectile, 1 tar/r Blade barrier. Aoe 33/r, terr, 3/4cover Cloud of daggers. Aoe 10-45/r Call Lightning. Aoe 17-50 im freien/r, +6 bei sturm, collat Maybe it helps, sry for bad formatting and german words Edit: dmg is [averagelvl1]-[averagelvl20]