You can't use Shadowblade and Counterspell on the same turn. Bonus action rule.
Fair point...GWM would be the next best option and forgoing one attack to prone. Still pretty solid damage as you are removing the AC advantage from shield.
Your hold person/GWM move is probably the best bet then...but yeah basically an EK has options more so than other fighters so actually I think they have close to the best chance.
The Eldritch Knight is horrible what do you mean? The wizard has Counterspell so what ever the Eldritch Knight tries to counter you can just cast a Counterspell to counter their counter. As with the Eldritch Knight stoping shield sure he can do that but he still won’t be able to kill the wizard before he gets a turn and wins.
Actually if you go first as an EK and counterspell the wizards attempt at a shield (They can't counterspell this as they used their reaction for shield) which could drastically increase damage output thanks to a significantly lower AC (23 vs 18) with an upcast Shadowblade, elven accuracy, and dueling fighting style. You would have a reasonable way of getting advantage on the attacks if you are in dim light.
”Actually if you go first as an EK and counterspell the wizards attempt at a shield (They can't counterspell this as they used their reaction for shield) which could drastically increase damage output thanks to a significantly lower AC (23 vs 18)“
Answer: Against Dread you could go first but my Chronurgist nope you’d auto lose. I’ll let my quotes do the work “As with the Eldritch Knight stoping shield sure he can do that but he still won’t be able to kill the wizard before he gets a turn and wins.” Against Dread his AC would be 19 as in the character sheet he has half-plate, a shield and a +2 dex bonus (although 18 still works as in my world you only get starting equipment so yeah).
Point Two:
”with an upcast Shadowblade, elven accuracy, and dueling fighting style. You would have a reasonable way of getting advantage on the attacks if you are in dim light.”
Answer: Wizard can counter shadowblade (but then the EK can counter back but it’ll be waaayy weaker so ehh). But how... how would you get dim light? you don’t have enough actions/to do so (my initial thought is to have a large light opaque blanket that you drop (dropping items is for free therefor you can gain dim light for that round or until the wizard does something like move idk).
Answer: It may be good but it ain’t great as you couldn’t even kill Dread before he got a turn or even touch the Chronurgist because you’d never get to go. But yeah good job... I guess the EK still couldn’t beat out my AAA (Aasimer Arcane Archer) build but yeah.
The Eldritch Knight is horrible what do you mean? The wizard has Counterspell so what ever the Eldritch Knight tries to counter you can just cast a Counterspell to counter their counter. As with the Eldritch Knight stoping shield sure he can do that but he still won’t be able to kill the wizard before he gets a turn and wins.
Actually if you go first as an EK and counterspell the wizards attempt at a shield (They can't counterspell this as they used their reaction for shield) which could drastically increase damage output thanks to a significantly lower AC (23 vs 18) with an upcast Shadowblade, elven accuracy, and dueling fighting style. You would have a reasonable way of getting advantage on the attacks if you are in dim light.
”Actually if you go first as an EK and counterspell the wizards attempt at a shield (They can't counterspell this as they used their reaction for shield) which could drastically increase damage output thanks to a significantly lower AC (23 vs 18)“
Answer: Against Dread you could go first but my Chronurgist nope you’d auto lose. I’ll let my quotes do the work “As with the Eldritch Knight stoping shield sure he can do that but he still won’t be able to kill the wizard before he gets a turn and wins.” Against Dread his AC would be 19 as in the character sheet he has half-plate, a shield and a +2 dex bonus (although 18 still works as in my world you only get starting equipment so yeah).
Point Two:
”with an upcast Shadowblade, elven accuracy, and dueling fighting style. You would have a reasonable way of getting advantage on the attacks if you are in dim light.”
Answer: Wizard can counter shadowblade (but then the EK can counter back but it’ll be waaayy weaker so ehh). But how... how would you get dim light? you don’t have enough actions/to do so (my initial thought is to have a large light opaque blanket that you drop (dropping items is for free therefor you can gain dim light for that round or until the wizard does something like move idk).
Answer: It may be good but it ain’t great as you couldn’t even kill Dread before he got a turn or even touch the Chronurgist because you’d never get to go. But yeah good job... I guess the EK still couldn’t beat out my AAA (Aasimer Arcane Archer) build but yeah.
Yeah my point being it's far from the worst option. My stance is no fighter is going to win most likely but EK has a decent shot.
Add in metamagic adept for quicken on Hold Person and that EK has the potential to be a serious danger to Dread and his slow ass. Clearly I had not spent enough time considering the EK's options.
Still, between actually winning initiative (Dread can actually do this, despite me throwing it away to the AA for experiment's sake), passing the save, and the EK failing their counterspell, I'm confident in saying Dread is still a sizeable favorite in the matchup.
Considering Dread has more than enough HP to survive the Arcane Archer's onslaught (pretty sure that's the best "nova" damage outside a quickened hold person EK), I'm heavily considering dropping the +2 constitution and replacing it with Lucky
I think that is a good call. 20 HP isn't going to drop you below a kill threshold for pure nova fighters, so your biggest threats are failing certain saving throws.
Even against raw attackers, you can use lucky on attack rolls against you, so you gain some effective HP.
Edited my numbers down, actually. I was including hex damage from a previous calculator. The calculation is ((Hit chance * Sharpshooter damage) + (crit chance * Sharpshooter crit)) * 8 attacks.
Against Chronogist wizard you actually can go first, but its harder because of their initiative boost. Convergent future does not help with Initiative rolls, since they do not actually have an explicit success/failure point.
One possible option against Dread though: EK opening with Hold Person, backed by Counterspell. Go GWM to take advantage of paralysys. With Lucky, you have a >50% chance at succeeding with your Counterspell, and then Dread has a 35% chance to fail his wisdom save (+6 with advantage against DC 19).
If they do fail, you can burn through Dread's 265 HP with 13 attacks, 5 of which autocrit. That's a ~20-25% chance at victory when going first against Dread, which is low but not ignorable.
Point One:
”Edited my numbers down, actually. I was including hex damage from a previous calculator. The calculation is ((Hit chance * Sharpshooter damage) + (crit chance * Sharpshooter crit)) * 8 attacks.“
Answer: Hmmm... K.
Point Two:
”Against Chronogist wizard you actually can go first, but its harder because of their initiative boost. Convergent future does not help with Initiative rolls, since they do not actually have an explicit success/failure point.“
Answer: How can the fighter beat +15 + 1d6 of initiative. You can say that “Convergent future does not help with Initiative rolls” but that’s... not true. A success in a contested initiative roll would be to win the contest (to go first) so if I i choose to succeed I will go 1 higher (up to 20) than the highest roll if I choose to fail it would go 1 below the lowest so I fail and go last (down to 1).
Point Three:
“One possible option against Dread though: EK opening with Hold Person, backed by Counterspell. Go GWM to take advantage of paralysys. With Lucky, you have a >50% chance at succeeding with your Counterspell, and then Dread has a 35% chance to fail his wisdom save (+6 with advantage against DC 19).“
Answer: That is why Dread is a weakling compared to my Chronurgist build. Dread has counters, Chronurgist goes first and wins.
Point Four:
”If they do fail, you can burn through Dread's 265 HP with 13 attacks, 5 of which autocrit. That's a ~20-25% chance at victory when going first against Dread, which is low but not ignorable.“
Answer: EK vs AAA their chance are similar but I think AAA might have the advantage but who knows.
Add in metamagic adept for quicken on Hold Person and that EK has the potential to be a serious danger to Dread and his slow ass. Clearly I had not spent enough time considering the EK's options.
Still, between actually winning initiative (Dread can actually do this, despite me throwing it away to the AA for experiment's sake), passing the save, and the EK failing their counterspell, I'm confident in saying Dread is still a sizeable favorite in the matchup.
Considering Dread has more than enough HP to survive the Arcane Archer's onslaught (pretty sure that's the best "nova" damage outside a quickened hold person EK), I'm heavily considering dropping the +2 constitution and replacing it with Lucky
Point One:
“Aethelwolf good show!”
Answer: Yes, it was a well done build.
Point Two:
”Add in metamagic adept for quicken on Hold Person and that EK has the potential to be a serious danger to Dread and his slow ass. Clearly I had not spent enough time considering the EK's options.“
Answer: By making Hold person a bonus action for how bonus action spells work you couldn’t cast Counterspell to stop the wizards Counterspell. So no that wouldn’t work but it still would be a great idea to make a spell a bonus action for later use and same thing for the wizard if he were to use metamagic adept. As with metamagic adept the wizard could take it and take subtle spell to make their spells uncounterable (even uncounterable Counterspell). And yes even I forgot about EK‘s options (Mostly Hold Person but still).
Point Three:
”Still, between actually winning initiative (Dread can actually do this, despite me throwing it away to the AA for experiment's sake), passing the save, and the EK failing their counterspell, I'm confident in saying Dread is still a sizeable favorite in the matchup.“
Answer: Umm... ok then do tell.
Point Four:
”Considering Dread has more than enough HP to survive the Arcane Archer's onslaught (pretty sure that's the best "nova" damage outside a quickened hold person EK), I'm heavily considering dropping the +2 constitution and replacing it with Lucky”
Answer: As with the AA onslaught you can die but it is quite unlikely. I need to do the math on the EK build so I’ll be back on that. Drop the Warcaster (Resilient is enough and as all you want is one turn Warcaster makes no sense) get lucky and keep the 20 con.
With no DC and no contested check, there is no explicit success/failure value. You are arbitrarily choosing a number that you like. This becomes more clear when you have multiple combatants and your ideal 'successful' number is somewhere in the middle. Or, when you have Lair actions or other environmental effects that aren't part of the initiative roll at all.
I'm confused at where the 1d6 for initiative is coming from. But either way, your +15-18 is high, but not insurmountable, which is what I said.
With no DC and no contested check, there is no explicit success/failure value. You are arbitrarily choosing a number that you like. This becomes more clear when you have multiple combatants and your ideal 'successful' number is somewhere in the middle. Or, when you have Lair actions or other environmental effects that aren't part of the initiative roll at all.
I'm confused at where the 1d6 for initiative is coming from. But either way, your +15-18 is high, but not insurmountable, which is what I said.
It was a point of comparison for easier comprehension. The 1d6 is from Martial Adept with Ambush. Please tell me how your fighter can surmount 15 + 1d6 with multiple roll manipulations?
And as initiative is an ability check you can use convergent future on it as per the description. I know you’ll but there is no success or failure on initiative then I’ll say would you not think that getting the highest initiative and going first not a success or the lowest initiative and going last is not a failure but then you’ll say b-but isn’t success or failure subjective but I’d say no refer to my previous point.
De4thkn1ght the EK is way deadlier to Dread than your AAA. You posted a damage calculation based on all attacks hitting and just barely got over the finish line. The chances of that happening are so incredibly low. The average damage coming from that build is not enough to kill him even if I drop con to 18 to pick up Lucky. Dread wins 99.99% of the time. The EK can threaten somewhere in the range of 15-25% victory (depending on lucky math this is just an estimate based on Aethelwolf's calculations)
The chronurgist is certainly a stronger subclass in general (of course, it's utter nonsense), but within this contest I actually think Dread is very similar in winning power (dare I say a little stronger). The chronurgist leaves every build that can deal enough damage the chance to win Initiative (even if slim) meaning it has a small chance to lose to a decent number of builds. Convergent Future cannot be used to guarantee you win Initiative because Initiative is not a check that has a distinct success/failure dynamic. Dread literally can't lose to pretty much anything but Hold Person EK, and even that is not a great chance, especially now that he's Lucky. He has no chance to lose to most of the builds that can threaten the chronurgist, but has a higher chance to lose to the EK (which again is not a bad matchup by any stretch).
De4thkn1ght the EK is way deadlier to Dread than your AAA. You posted a damage calculation based on all attacks hitting and just barely got over the finish line. The chances of that happening are so incredibly low. The average damage coming from that build is not enough to kill him even if I drop con to 18 to pick up Lucky. Dread wins 99.99% of the time. The EK can threaten somewhere in the range of 15-25% victory (depending on lucky math this is just an estimate based on Aethelwolf's calculations)
The chronurgist is certainly a stronger subclass in general (of course it's utter nonsense), but within this contest I actually think Dread is very similar in winning power (dare I say a little stronger). The chronurgist leaves every build that can deal enough damage the chance to win Initiative (even if slim) meaning it has a small chance to lose to a decent number of builds. Dread literally can't lose to pretty much anything but Hold Person EK, and even that is not a great chance, especially now that he's Lucky. He has no chance to lose to most of the builds that can threaten the chronurgist, but has a higher chance to lose to the EK (which again is not a bad matchup by any stretch).
That ruling on Initiative checks comes from a legitimate source of rules knowledge. Jeremy Crawford and Sage Advice is how they address things the books do not spell out in clear enough language. I understand plenty of people have beefs with the dude and don't follow a lot of these rules, but this challenge is going to follow what is considered RAW, or it might as well not happen at all.
Initiative is not a contest, and therefore not a legal use of Convergent Future
Point One:
“De4thkn1ght the EK is way deadlier to Dread than your AAA.You posted a damage calculation based on all attacks hitting and just barely got over the finish line. The chances of that happening are so incredibly low. The average damage coming from that build is not enough to kill him even if I drop con to 18 to pick up Lucky. Dread wins 99.99% of the time.“
Answer: Yep and it’s unlikely.
Point Two:
“The EK can threaten somewhere in the range of 15-25% victory (depending on lucky math this is just an estimate based on Aethelwolf's calculations)”
Answer: Imma do a EK build later.
Point Three:
“The chronurgist is certainly a stronger subclass in general (of course it's utter nonsense)”
Answer: What do you mean the Chronurgist is just “utter nonsense.” As a Chronurgist if I wanted I could prioritize Con and Dex for the same affect to get 222 hp too if I wanted but why would I when I can just use Dex to get initiative so high to the point where the Chronurgist just like can’t lose and just saying if the opponent tries to beat out my initiative they use up like all of the ASI’s and Feats to even get close to my initiative by wait there’s more I have roll manipulation so I can ether force myself to win (if they don’t have lucky) or just enforce advantage to me or disadvantage to my opponent so it would be soooooooo astronomically small for me to ever even kill me. Let’s say they beat me in initiative (somehow). Now they go first they go in and attack dealing a total of...... like 75 damage and I’m fine as the fighter spent so much into feats and ASI’s to win initiative he can’t even kill me.
Point Four:
”but within this contest I actually think Dread is very similar in winning power (dare I say a little stronger). The chronurgist leaves every build that can deal enough damage the chance to win Initiative (even if slim) meaning it has a small chance to lose to a decent number of builds.“
Answer: You act as if it’s like a drop of the hat then boom look the fighter beat the wizard’s initiative. And how is Dread is stronger? Your build can be defeated with a great chance (in this context) by your own admission 15-25% mine the chance to lose is far below 1% so how is yours better? And no my build cannot just be beat by any build actually give me a build and I’ll see if you can defeat mine remember your gonna need a lot of initiative (hahahahha).
Point Five:
”Dread literally can't lose to pretty much anything but Hold Person EK, and even that is not a great chance, especially now that he's Lucky.“
Answer: Saying “literally can’t lose” next to the words of “pretty much” is funny isn’t it... Even with lucky you have a mere decent chance of success.
Point Six:
”He has no chance to lose to most of the builds that can threaten the chronurgist, but has a higher chance to lose to the EK (which again is not a bad matchup by any stretch).“
Answer: It seems you SEVERELY misunderstood or downplay the power the Chronurgist wields at his finger tips. No... no the EK can’t even touch the Chronurgist in power in spells, initiative, hax or otherwise. And by the standards set having a higher than like ten percent win rate for the fighter means something is wrong (as in the wizard is doing something wrong) so yes it kinda is a bad matchup but I do get what you mean though.
Point Seven: This is a biggie
”That ruling on Initiative checks comes from a legitimate source of rules knowledge. Jeremy Crawford and Sage Advice is how they address things the books do not spell out in clear enough language. I understand plenty of people have beefs with the dude and don't follow a lot of these rules, but this challenge is going to follow what is considered RAW, or it might as well not happen at all.
Initiative is not a contest, and therefore not a legal use of Convergent Future“
ANSWER: I still don’t think you even read what I said when I talked about the use of Convergent Future but for good measure I’ll quote it the whole thing:
With no DC and no contested check, there is no explicit success/failure value. You are arbitrarily choosing a number that you like. This becomes more clear when you have multiple combatants and your ideal 'successful' number is somewhere in the middle. Or, when you have Lair actions or other environmental effects that aren't part of the initiative roll at all.
I'm confused at where the 1d6 for initiative is coming from. But either way, your +15-18 is high, but not insurmountable, which is what I said.
It was a point of comparison for easier comprehension. The 1d6 is from Martial Adept with Ambush. Please tell me how your fighter can surmount 15 + 1d6 with multiple roll manipulations?
And as initiative is an ability check you can use convergent future on it as per the description. I know you’ll but there is no success or failure on initiative then I’ll say would you not think that getting the highest initiative and going first not a success or the lowest initiative and going last is not a failure but then you’ll say b-but isn’t success or failure subjective but I’d say no refer to my previous point.
Now that, that is over you say that we should only use “what is considered RAW” also just a disclaimer Jeremy Crawford is only one of the sages the others are mostly just prominent DM’s like Mike Mearls, and others sometimes even using Matthew Merced for Wildemount. Also sage advice it is true it is not RAW but it is RAI (when Jeremy Crawford is used). As with the Convergent Future thing I state it in my previous post that “It was a point of comparison for easier comprehension” not that initiative score were contests (the reasons I choose contest as they were the closest relatable thing to a initiative roll I could think of) I guess I’m sorry for not being clear enough???? And as with the “Initiative is not a contest, and therefore not a legal use of Convergent Future“ for Convergent Future to be used it must be... never mind I’ll just quote the whole thing who cares anyways:
“Starting at 14th level, you can peer through possible futures and magically pull one of them into events around you, ensuring a particular outcome. When you or a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to ignore the die roll and decide whether the number rolled is the minimum needed to succeed or one less than that number (your choice).
When you use this feature, you gain one level of exhaustion. Only by finishing a long rest can you remove a level of exhaustion gained in this way.”
There you happy now, initiative checks are ability checks and Convergent Future affects ability checks and that means it works (I don’t care if you say there is no success I’ll I say is look at what I’ve quoted).
“Starting at 14th level, you can peer through possible futures and magically pull one of them into events around you, ensuring a particular outcome. When you or a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to ignore the die roll and decide whether the number rolled is the minimum needed to succeed or one less than that number (your choice).
When you use this feature, you gain one level of exhaustion. Only by finishing a long rest can you remove a level of exhaustion gained in this way.”
There you happy now, initiative checks are ability checks and Convergent Future affects ability checks and that means it works (I don’t care if you say there is no success I’ll I say is look at what I’ve quoted).
What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?
“Starting at 14th level, you can peer through possible futures and magically pull one of them into events around you, ensuring a particular outcome. When you or a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to ignore the die roll and decide whether the number rolled is the minimum needed to succeed or one less than that number (your choice).
When you use this feature, you gain one level of exhaustion. Only by finishing a long rest can you remove a level of exhaustion gained in this way.”
There you happy now, initiative checks are ability checks and Convergent Future affects ability checks and that means it works (I don’t care if you say there is no success I’ll I say is look at what I’ve quoted).
What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?
Point One:
”What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?“
Answer: You know initiative checks are in fact a dexterity check. So a better way to describe a way for you to realize that there is “success” and failure... again I shall do another example. Say you are faced with three opponents one rolls a 5, the second rolls a 10, and the third 15 each with no bonus. Now you you are also rolling to see who goes first by hey you want to use Convergent Future and want to succeed so you choose 1 more than the threshold to succeed and “roll” a 16 and therefore go first now if you chose the opposite and want to go fail you would “roll” a 4 and go last. Think of the highest initiative count (in this case 15) being the top part of the DC meaning anything above is a “success” and the lowest initiative count (in this case 5) being the bottom part of the DC meaning anything below is a “failure.” Also I have two others on this subject before that one.
What do you mean the Chronurgist is just “utter nonsense.”
I call the Chronurgist "utter nonsense" because it's some seriously over-tuned, ill-balanced CR brew. That's why I've personally stayed away from it during this contest, but I'm certainly not giving you crap for using it. Said what I did to acknowledge how much better the Chronurgist is than the Abjurer out of the white room.
And how is Dread is stronger? Your build can be defeated with a great chance (in this context) by your own admission 15-25% mine the chance to lose is far below 1% so how is yours better?
That 1% seems like nonsense. Where is that math coming from? You've seriously overestimated how much you can accomplish with your ASI's and what that means for your Initiative advantage and ability to auto win these matches.
It takes 4 ASIs to max out Dex and Int if you're going for initiative. If you're V human, that leaves 2 to pick from Alert/Lucky/ Martial Adept/ Resilient/Warcaster. If you don't take resilient then this build will be stuck with +2 Con and a measly 122 HP, which the nova builds that have been discussed can beat. Especially because using Chronal Shift means you don't have shield up. If you don't take Lucky AND Alert, then your advantage in the initiative war is diminished. You have no room for Martial Adept, unless you're sacrificing other initiative boosts.
Me saying Dread is stronger (specifically as a fighter killer) is speculative at best. Not something I actually want to debate about, and also not something I feel strongly about. But my logic comes from playing Magic. In a world with two utterly broken decks that somehow never play against each other, if one has one 80/20 matchup and four 100/0 matchups and then another has five 95/5 matchups then I'm going to feel like it's a toss up over which one would be better to play if I wanted to utterly maximize my win rate. I'll leave it at that.
And no my build cannot just be beat by any build actually give me a build and I’ll see if you can defeat mine remember your gonna need a lot of initiative (hahahahha).
Again, If you go for maximum initiative then you have 122 HP. The only nova builds we've been discussing as viable can produce this damage. I wouldn't be surprised if there were others that could reach it (an echo knight that makes 10 attacks perhaps). If you go for more HP then you're sacrificing initiative. And I'll say again, I think you're overestimating your ability to win initiative. Your advantage over your average dexterity fighter is +5 and the ability to use chronal shift. As a single stat class with extra ASI's they have plenty of space for Alert and Lucky to match the chronurgist on that front. They can also afford to play a non vhuman race without giving up initiative boosting ASIs. So halfling steps in and adds an extra little layer. As for the fighters beating these odds, considering all that, 1% feels very wrong, and the 5% I gave in my example earlier feels generous itself.
The Battlemaster has ambush as an in-class initiative boost, which adds an average of +6.5, outpacing the chronurgist's +5 from intelligence. Consider a halfling battlemaster versus vhuman chronurgist:
Battlemaster Initiative: 5 (dex) + 5 (alert) + 6.5 (ambush) = 16.5 with Lucky and Lucky
Chronurgist: 5 (dex) + 5 (intelligence) + 5 (alert) = 15 with Lucky and Chronal Shift
Chronal Shift is obviously better than halfling lucky, but that roll doesn't seem like such a sure thing. And with Chronal Shift, you're leaving yourself with 18 AC and ripe for killing if you lose the roll.
Feels funny to post a fighter build now, but here's Redcap, the murderous little battlemaster:
Saying “literally can’t lose” next to the words of “pretty much” is funny isn’t it... Even with lucky you have a mere decent chance of success.
The "pretty much" is me leaving the possibility open that there are other builds out there that haven't been shown yet that can deal enough damage to kill Dread.
Between lucky and getting an extra +1 in wisdom (by dumping charisma), I think the EK's chances have gotten significantly slimmer in the matchup. I'm even considering dropping intelligence to 14 to pick up another +1 in wisdom. I need to do the math for the yuan-ti champion vs. the microwave before I do, but I'm pretty sure 3-5 cycles will kill them regardless.
Between the percentage to win initiative, pass the save, and EK failing the counterspell and now Lucky and a better wisdom mod, I'm confident the matchup is quite strong for Dread.
Alright, Convergent Future time. I did read what you had to say De4th. I disagreed with it. You must have been typing for a while, because I actually edited a bunch of that out before you posted, because while I think that ruling does work for this stance, I think there is a better way to support it.
As I understand it, everything rests upon the word "Succeed". Defining what it means to succeed at an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is key to understanding why this does not effect initiative.
When you succeed at something, it means there was a chance of failure. This pass/fail dynamic is important.
Attacks are easy because they're all pass/fail. In the case of an attack, if you do not reach a certain number, your attack fails to hit and you do nothing.
Saves are also easy because they literally say on a success X happens, and on a failure Y happens.
Ability checks makes it confusing because most are, but Initiative is not. When you make a check to try and pick a lock, if you don't reach a certain number you fail to open the lock. When you try to shove a creature, if you roll under a certain number you fail to move them.
There is no failure in initiative. You don't risk failing to be able to do anything, no matter how low you roll. You do not risk having a different effect happen based on how high or low you roll on initiative. No matter what, everyone simply takes their turns. The tactical benefits or deficiencies of how your initiative effects you is not a black and white relationship like the pass/fail relationships of attacks and saves and most ability checks.
Without a failure state, you cannot succeed. Without a number set to draw a line between two disparate effects, Initiative is not a roll that can be defined by success and failure.
What do you mean the Chronurgist is just “utter nonsense.”
I call the Chronurgist "utter nonsense" because it's some seriously over-tuned, ill-balanced CR brew. That's why I've personally stayed away from it during this contest, but I'm certainly not giving you crap for using it. Said what I did to acknowledge how much better the Chronurgist is than the Abjurer out of the white room.
And how is Dread is stronger? Your build can be defeated with a great chance (in this context) by your own admission 15-25% mine the chance to lose is far below 1% so how is yours better?
That 1% seems like nonsense. Where is that math coming from? You've seriously overestimated how much you can accomplish with your ASI's and what that means for your Initiative advantage and ability to auto win these matches.
It takes 4 ASIs to max out Dex and Int if you're going for initiative. If you're V human, that leaves 2 to pick from Alert/Lucky/ Martial Adept/ Resilient/Warcaster. If you don't take resilient then this build will be stuck with +2 Con and a measly 122 HP, which the nova builds that have been discussed can beat. Especially because using Chronal Shift means you don't have shield up. If you don't take Lucky AND Alert, then your advantage in the initiative war is diminished. You have no room for Martial Adept, unless you're sacrificing other initiative boosts.
Me saying Dread is stronger (specifically as a fighter killer) is speculative at best. Not something I actually want to debate about, and also not something I feel strongly about. But my logic comes from playing Magic. In a world with two utterly broken decks that somehow never play against each other, if one has one 80/20 matchup and four 100/0 matchups and then another has five 95/5 matchups then I'm going to feel like it's a toss up over which one would be better to play if I wanted to utterly maximize my win rate. I'll leave it at that.
And no my build cannot just be beat by any build actually give me a build and I’ll see if you can defeat mine remember your gonna need a lot of initiative (hahahahha).
Again, If you go for maximum initiative then you have 122 HP. The only nova builds we've been discussing as viable can produce this damage. I wouldn't be surprised if there were others that could reach it (an echo knight that makes 10 attacks perhaps). If you go for more HP then you're sacrificing initiative. And I'll say again, I think you're overestimating your ability to win initiative. Your advantage over your average dexterity fighter is +5 and the ability to use chronal shift. As a single stat class with extra ASI's they have plenty of space for Alert and Lucky to match the chronurgist on that front. They can also afford to play a non vhuman race without giving up initiative boosting ASIs. So halfling steps in and adds an extra little layer. As for the fighters beating these odds, considering all that, 1% feels very wrong, and the 5% I gave in my example earlier feels generous itself.
The Battlemaster has ambush as an in-class initiative boost, which adds an average of +6.5, outpacing the chronurgist's +5 from intelligence. Consider a halfling battlemaster versus vhuman chronurgist:
Battlemaster Initiative: 5 (dex) + 5 (alert) + 6.5 (ambush) = 16.5 with Lucky and Lucky
Chronurgist: 5 (dex) + 5 (intelligence) + 5 (alert) = 15 with Lucky and Chronal Shift
Chronal Shift is obviously better than halfling lucky, but that roll doesn't seem like such a sure thing. And with Chronal Shift, you're leaving yourself with 18 AC and ripe for killing if you lose the roll.
Feels funny to post a fighter build now, but here's Redcap, the murderous little battlemaster:
Saying “literally can’t lose” next to the words of “pretty much” is funny isn’t it... Even with lucky you have a mere decent chance of success.
The "pretty much" is me leaving the possibility open that there are other builds out there that haven't been shown yet that can deal enough damage to kill Dread.
Between lucky and getting an extra +1 in wisdom (by dumping charisma), I think the EK's chances have gotten significantly slimmer in the matchup. I'm even considering dropping intelligence to 14 to pick up another +1 in wisdom. I need to do the math for the yuan-ti champion vs. the microwave before I do, but I'm pretty sure 3-5 cycles will kill them regardless.
Between the percentage to win initiative, pass the save, and EK failing the counterspell and now Lucky and a better wisdom mod, I'm confident the matchup is quite strong for Dread.
Alright, Convergent Future time. I did read what you had to say De4th. I disagreed with it. You must have been typing for a while, because I actually edited a bunch of that out before you posted, because while I think that ruling does work for this stance, I think there is a better way to support it.
As I understand it, everything rests upon the word "Succeed". Defining what it means to succeed at an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is key to understanding why this does not effect initiative.
When you succeed at something, it means there was a chance of failure. This pass/fail dynamic is important.
Attacks are easy because they're all pass/fail. In the case of an attack, if you do not reach a certain number, your attack fails to hit and you do nothing.
Saves are also easy because they literally say on a success X happens, and on a failure Y happens.
Ability checks makes it confusing because most are, but Initiative is not. When you make a check to try and pick a lock, if you don't reach a certain number you fail to open the lock. When you try to shove a creature, if you roll under a certain number you fail to move them.
There is no failure in initiative. You don't risk failing to be able to do anything, no matter how low you roll. You do not risk having a different effect happen based on how high or low you roll on initiative. No matter what, everyone simply takes their turns. The tactical benefits or deficiencies of how your initiative effects you is not a black and white relationship like the pass/fail relationships of attacks and saves and most ability checks.
Without a failure state, you cannot succeed. Without a number set to draw a line between two disparate effects, Initiative is not a roll that can be defined by success and failure.
Imma leave out the point form for this post (But if you want me to go over each point I will).
You act as if I will ever actually max con (obviously I Can as their are many variations with the Chronurgist) but in reality there are a lot of spells that literally don’t care about the wizards concentration and if I’m to go first I’m not going to be hit. As with the success - failure all I got to say is the success is to beat every other thing and succeed but ehh I feel like we can agree to disagree as I feel we are both not gonna change are opinions.
Hey I just realized something for both your and my builds withe the shield spell if you have Metamagic Adept and choose subtle spell you can make your AC go up by 5 without it being Counterspelled. Subtle spell also just adds so much more power to the wizard especially against a EK build.
”What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?“
Answer: You know initiative checks are in fact a dexterity check. So a better way to describe a way for you to realize that there is “success” and failure... again I shall do another example. Say you are faced with three opponents one rolls a 5, the second rolls a 10, and the third 15 each with no bonus. Now you you are also rolling to see who goes first by hey you want to use Convergent Future and want to succeed so you choose 1 more than the threshold to succeed and “roll” a 16 and therefore go first now if you chose the opposite and want to go fail you would “roll” a 4 and go last. Think of the highest initiative count (in this case 15) being the top part of the DC meaning anything above is a “success” and the lowest initiative count (in this case 5) being the bottom part of the DC meaning anything below is a “failure.” Also I have two others on this subject before that one.
I'm firmly in HeironymusZot's camp that there can be no easily quantifiable success or failure for an initiative roll as it is (as I believe someone posted a link earlier) not contested. Because the result is subjective (in this case clear cut that you want to go first, but not every scenario, and because the roll isn't contested you can't say you failed if someone does go earlier). However if we're being arbitrary, we could argue that the minimum roll required to succeed on an initiative check is 1, because every roll is a success if there is no success or failure (I'm sure someone will punch holes in this but hey, let's just roll with it).
So, let's look at the ability again:
Starting at 14th level, you can peer through possible futures and magically pull one of them into events around you, ensuring a particular outcome. When you or a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to ignore the die roll and decide whether the number rolled is the minimum needed to succeedor one less than that number (your choice).
If we've determined that the only true success in rolling initiative is rolling, and the minimum success is 1, then if the opponent is within 60 ft then we can decide that they rolled one less than the minimum number needed for success, so you can decide your opponent rolled a 0, truly the only failure possible.
I should have probably given clues to what I was getting at initially, but I wanted to see if anyone else would come to the same convoluted conclusion.
With Convergent Future it has to be within the realm of a d20 (1-20) roll so rolling a 0 is impossible. As with the use of Convergent future on initiative checks I guess I just refer you to my previous 3 points on it earlier in these posts.
HeironymusZot I have a though for you get rid of Warcaster, and Resilience (Con) and replace them with Lucky and Metamagic Adept (Subtle Spell and Quickened Spell). The subtle spells means you can Counterspell any spell without being Counterspelled back also if you want you can cast any purely verbal and/or somatic spells without notice. That means when attacked you can cast shield and not be Counterspelled.
I had the thought of making my Chronurgist like Dread in that it has lots of hp too (as in perhaps ease off the initiative win route as you’ll were like no so ehh). Personally, I feel the mix of Dread’s hp Idea and my Chronurgist subclass and Feat change would make one of the best if not best (when optimized) builds for the fighter battle.
PS: With the “Fighter 20 vs wizard 20” title I feel that we can call that at least the wizard will win more of the time than not (and by not I mean like 10% of the time no more).
Fair point...GWM would be the next best option and forgoing one attack to prone. Still pretty solid damage as you are removing the AC advantage from shield.
Your hold person/GWM move is probably the best bet then...but yeah basically an EK has options more so than other fighters so actually I think they have close to the best chance.
Point One:
”Actually if you go first as an EK and counterspell the wizards attempt at a shield (They can't counterspell this as they used their reaction for shield) which could drastically increase damage output thanks to a significantly lower AC (23 vs 18)“
Answer: Against Dread you could go first but my Chronurgist nope you’d auto lose. I’ll let my quotes do the work “As with the Eldritch Knight stoping shield sure he can do that but he still won’t be able to kill the wizard before he gets a turn and wins.” Against Dread his AC would be 19 as in the character sheet he has half-plate, a shield and a +2 dex bonus (although 18 still works as in my world you only get starting equipment so yeah).
Point Two:
”with an upcast Shadowblade, elven accuracy, and dueling fighting style. You would have a reasonable way of getting advantage on the attacks if you are in dim light.”
Answer: Wizard can counter shadowblade (but then the EK can counter back but it’ll be waaayy weaker so ehh). But how... how would you get dim light? you don’t have enough actions/to do so (my initial thought is to have a large light opaque blanket that you drop (dropping items is for free therefor you can gain dim light for that round or until the wizard does something like move idk).
Point three:
“Damage actually looks pretty good: https://imgur.com/URnqBxW”
Answer: It may be good but it ain’t great as you couldn’t even kill Dread before he got a turn or even touch the Chronurgist because you’d never get to go. But yeah good job... I guess the EK still couldn’t beat out my AAA (Aasimer Arcane Archer) build but yeah.
Yeah my point being it's far from the worst option. My stance is no fighter is going to win most likely but EK has a decent shot.
Aethelwolf good show!
Add in metamagic adept for quicken on Hold Person and that EK has the potential to be a serious danger to Dread and his slow ass. Clearly I had not spent enough time considering the EK's options.
Still, between actually winning initiative (Dread can actually do this, despite me throwing it away to the AA for experiment's sake), passing the save, and the EK failing their counterspell, I'm confident in saying Dread is still a sizeable favorite in the matchup.
Considering Dread has more than enough HP to survive the Arcane Archer's onslaught (pretty sure that's the best "nova" damage outside a quickened hold person EK), I'm heavily considering dropping the +2 constitution and replacing it with Lucky
I think that is a good call. 20 HP isn't going to drop you below a kill threshold for pure nova fighters, so your biggest threats are failing certain saving throws.
Even against raw attackers, you can use lucky on attack rolls against you, so you gain some effective HP.
Point One:
”Edited my numbers down, actually. I was including hex damage from a previous calculator. The calculation is ((Hit chance * Sharpshooter damage) + (crit chance * Sharpshooter crit)) * 8 attacks.“
Answer: Hmmm... K.
Point Two:
”Against Chronogist wizard you actually can go first, but its harder because of their initiative boost. Convergent future does not help with Initiative rolls, since they do not actually have an explicit success/failure point.“
Answer: How can the fighter beat +15 + 1d6 of initiative. You can say that “Convergent future does not help with Initiative rolls” but that’s... not true. A success in a contested initiative roll would be to win the contest (to go first) so if I i choose to succeed I will go 1 higher (up to 20) than the highest roll if I choose to fail it would go 1 below the lowest so I fail and go last (down to 1).
Point Three:
“One possible option against Dread though: EK opening with Hold Person, backed by Counterspell. Go GWM to take advantage of paralysys. With Lucky, you have a >50% chance at succeeding with your Counterspell, and then Dread has a 35% chance to fail his wisdom save (+6 with advantage against DC 19).“
Answer: That is why Dread is a weakling compared to my Chronurgist build. Dread has counters, Chronurgist goes first and wins.
Point Four:
”If they do fail, you can burn through Dread's 265 HP with 13 attacks, 5 of which autocrit. That's a ~20-25% chance at victory when going first against Dread, which is low but not ignorable.“
Answer: EK vs AAA their chance are similar but I think AAA might have the advantage but who knows.
Point One:
“Aethelwolf good show!”
Answer: Yes, it was a well done build.
Point Two:
”Add in metamagic adept for quicken on Hold Person and that EK has the potential to be a serious danger to Dread and his slow ass. Clearly I had not spent enough time considering the EK's options.“
Answer: By making Hold person a bonus action for how bonus action spells work you couldn’t cast Counterspell to stop the wizards Counterspell. So no that wouldn’t work but it still would be a great idea to make a spell a bonus action for later use and same thing for the wizard if he were to use metamagic adept. As with metamagic adept the wizard could take it and take subtle spell to make their spells uncounterable (even uncounterable Counterspell). And yes even I forgot about EK‘s options (Mostly Hold Person but still).
Point Three:
”Still, between actually winning initiative (Dread can actually do this, despite me throwing it away to the AA for experiment's sake), passing the save, and the EK failing their counterspell, I'm confident in saying Dread is still a sizeable favorite in the matchup.“
Answer: Umm... ok then do tell.
Point Four:
”Considering Dread has more than enough HP to survive the Arcane Archer's onslaught (pretty sure that's the best "nova" damage outside a quickened hold person EK), I'm heavily considering dropping the +2 constitution and replacing it with Lucky”
Answer: As with the AA onslaught you can die but it is quite unlikely. I need to do the math on the EK build so I’ll be back on that. Drop the Warcaster (Resilient is enough and as all you want is one turn Warcaster makes no sense) get lucky and keep the 20 con.
Initiative is not a contested ability check.
With no DC and no contested check, there is no explicit success/failure value. You are arbitrarily choosing a number that you like. This becomes more clear when you have multiple combatants and your ideal 'successful' number is somewhere in the middle. Or, when you have Lair actions or other environmental effects that aren't part of the initiative roll at all.
I'm confused at where the 1d6 for initiative is coming from. But either way, your +15-18 is high, but not insurmountable, which is what I said.
It was a point of comparison for easier comprehension. The 1d6 is from Martial Adept with Ambush. Please tell me how your fighter can surmount 15 + 1d6 with multiple roll manipulations?
And as initiative is an ability check you can use convergent future on it as per the description. I know you’ll but there is no success or failure on initiative then I’ll say would you not think that getting the highest initiative and going first not a success or the lowest initiative and going last is not a failure but then you’ll say b-but isn’t success or failure subjective but I’d say no refer to my previous point.
De4thkn1ght the EK is way deadlier to Dread than your AAA. You posted a damage calculation based on all attacks hitting and just barely got over the finish line. The chances of that happening are so incredibly low. The average damage coming from that build is not enough to kill him even if I drop con to 18 to pick up Lucky. Dread wins 99.99% of the time. The EK can threaten somewhere in the range of 15-25% victory (depending on lucky math this is just an estimate based on Aethelwolf's calculations)
The chronurgist is certainly a stronger subclass in general (of course, it's utter nonsense), but within this contest I actually think Dread is very similar in winning power (dare I say a little stronger). The chronurgist leaves every build that can deal enough damage the chance to win Initiative (even if slim) meaning it has a small chance to lose to a decent number of builds. Convergent Future cannot be used to guarantee you win Initiative because Initiative is not a check that has a distinct success/failure dynamic. Dread literally can't lose to pretty much anything but Hold Person EK, and even that is not a great chance, especially now that he's Lucky. He has no chance to lose to most of the builds that can threaten the chronurgist, but has a higher chance to lose to the EK (which again is not a bad matchup by any stretch).
Point One:
“De4thkn1ght the EK is way deadlier to Dread than your AAA.You posted a damage calculation based on all attacks hitting and just barely got over the finish line. The chances of that happening are so incredibly low. The average damage coming from that build is not enough to kill him even if I drop con to 18 to pick up Lucky. Dread wins 99.99% of the time.“
Answer: Yep and it’s unlikely.
Point Two:
“The EK can threaten somewhere in the range of 15-25% victory (depending on lucky math this is just an estimate based on Aethelwolf's calculations)”
Answer: Imma do a EK build later.
Point Three:
“The chronurgist is certainly a stronger subclass in general (of course it's utter nonsense)”
Answer: What do you mean the Chronurgist is just “utter nonsense.” As a Chronurgist if I wanted I could prioritize Con and Dex for the same affect to get 222 hp too if I wanted but why would I when I can just use Dex to get initiative so high to the point where the Chronurgist just like can’t lose and just saying if the opponent tries to beat out my initiative they use up like all of the ASI’s and Feats to even get close to my initiative by wait there’s more I have roll manipulation so I can ether force myself to win (if they don’t have lucky) or just enforce advantage to me or disadvantage to my opponent so it would be soooooooo astronomically small for me to ever even kill me. Let’s say they beat me in initiative (somehow). Now they go first they go in and attack dealing a total of...... like 75 damage and I’m fine as the fighter spent so much into feats and ASI’s to win initiative he can’t even kill me.
Point Four:
”but within this contest I actually think Dread is very similar in winning power (dare I say a little stronger). The chronurgist leaves every build that can deal enough damage the chance to win Initiative (even if slim) meaning it has a small chance to lose to a decent number of builds.“
Answer: You act as if it’s like a drop of the hat then boom look the fighter beat the wizard’s initiative. And how is Dread is stronger? Your build can be defeated with a great chance (in this context) by your own admission 15-25% mine the chance to lose is far below 1% so how is yours better? And no my build cannot just be beat by any build actually give me a build and I’ll see if you can defeat mine remember your gonna need a lot of initiative (hahahahha).
Point Five:
”Dread literally can't lose to pretty much anything but Hold Person EK, and even that is not a great chance, especially now that he's Lucky.“
Answer: Saying “literally can’t lose” next to the words of “pretty much” is funny isn’t it... Even with lucky you have a mere decent chance of success.
Point Six:
”He has no chance to lose to most of the builds that can threaten the chronurgist, but has a higher chance to lose to the EK (which again is not a bad matchup by any stretch).“
Answer: It seems you SEVERELY misunderstood or downplay the power the Chronurgist wields at his finger tips. No... no the EK can’t even touch the Chronurgist in power in spells, initiative, hax or otherwise. And by the standards set having a higher than like ten percent win rate for the fighter means something is wrong (as in the wizard is doing something wrong) so yes it kinda is a bad matchup but I do get what you mean though.
Point Seven: This is a biggie
”That ruling on Initiative checks comes from a legitimate source of rules knowledge. Jeremy Crawford and Sage Advice is how they address things the books do not spell out in clear enough language. I understand plenty of people have beefs with the dude and don't follow a lot of these rules, but this challenge is going to follow what is considered RAW, or it might as well not happen at all.
Initiative is not a contest, and therefore not a legal use of Convergent Future“
ANSWER: I still don’t think you even read what I said when I talked about the use of Convergent Future but for good measure I’ll quote it the whole thing:
Now that, that is over you say that we should only use “what is considered RAW” also just a disclaimer Jeremy Crawford is only one of the sages the others are mostly just prominent DM’s like Mike Mearls, and others sometimes even using Matthew Merced for Wildemount. Also sage advice it is true it is not RAW but it is RAI (when Jeremy Crawford is used). As with the Convergent Future thing I state it in my previous post that “It was a point of comparison for easier comprehension” not that initiative score were contests (the reasons I choose contest as they were the closest relatable thing to a initiative roll I could think of) I guess I’m sorry for not being clear enough???? And as with the “Initiative is not a contest, and therefore not a legal use of Convergent Future“ for Convergent Future to be used it must be... never mind I’ll just quote the whole thing who cares anyways:
“Starting at 14th level, you can peer through possible futures and magically pull one of them into events around you, ensuring a particular outcome. When you or a creature you can see within 60 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can use your reaction to ignore the die roll and decide whether the number rolled is the minimum needed to succeed or one less than that number (your choice).
When you use this feature, you gain one level of exhaustion. Only by finishing a long rest can you remove a level of exhaustion gained in this way.”
There you happy now, initiative checks are ability checks and Convergent Future affects ability checks and that means it works (I don’t care if you say there is no success I’ll I say is look at what I’ve quoted).
What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?
Point One:
”What is the minimum needed to succeed at an initiative check? 1?“
Answer: You know initiative checks are in fact a dexterity check. So a better way to describe a way for you to realize that there is “success” and failure... again I shall do another example.
Say you are faced with three opponents one rolls a 5, the second rolls a 10, and the third 15 each with no bonus. Now you you are also rolling to see who goes first by hey you want to use Convergent Future and want to succeed so you choose 1 more than the threshold to succeed and “roll” a 16 and therefore go first now if you chose the opposite and want to go fail you would “roll” a 4 and go last. Think of the highest initiative count (in this case 15) being the top part of the DC meaning anything above is a “success” and the lowest initiative count (in this case 5) being the bottom part of the DC meaning anything below is a “failure.” Also I have two others on this subject before that one.
I call the Chronurgist "utter nonsense" because it's some seriously over-tuned, ill-balanced CR brew. That's why I've personally stayed away from it during this contest, but I'm certainly not giving you crap for using it. Said what I did to acknowledge how much better the Chronurgist is than the Abjurer out of the white room.
Nope. I never said anything of the like. I specifically called it a slim chance.
That 1% seems like nonsense. Where is that math coming from? You've seriously overestimated how much you can accomplish with your ASI's and what that means for your Initiative advantage and ability to auto win these matches.
It takes 4 ASIs to max out Dex and Int if you're going for initiative. If you're V human, that leaves 2 to pick from Alert/Lucky/ Martial Adept/ Resilient/Warcaster. If you don't take resilient then this build will be stuck with +2 Con and a measly 122 HP, which the nova builds that have been discussed can beat. Especially because using Chronal Shift means you don't have shield up. If you don't take Lucky AND Alert, then your advantage in the initiative war is diminished. You have no room for Martial Adept, unless you're sacrificing other initiative boosts.
Me saying Dread is stronger (specifically as a fighter killer) is speculative at best. Not something I actually want to debate about, and also not something I feel strongly about. But my logic comes from playing Magic. In a world with two utterly broken decks that somehow never play against each other, if one has one 80/20 matchup and four 100/0 matchups and then another has five 95/5 matchups then I'm going to feel like it's a toss up over which one would be better to play if I wanted to utterly maximize my win rate. I'll leave it at that.
Again, If you go for maximum initiative then you have 122 HP. The only nova builds we've been discussing as viable can produce this damage. I wouldn't be surprised if there were others that could reach it (an echo knight that makes 10 attacks perhaps). If you go for more HP then you're sacrificing initiative. And I'll say again, I think you're overestimating your ability to win initiative. Your advantage over your average dexterity fighter is +5 and the ability to use chronal shift. As a single stat class with extra ASI's they have plenty of space for Alert and Lucky to match the chronurgist on that front. They can also afford to play a non vhuman race without giving up initiative boosting ASIs. So halfling steps in and adds an extra little layer. As for the fighters beating these odds, considering all that, 1% feels very wrong, and the 5% I gave in my example earlier feels generous itself.
The Battlemaster has ambush as an in-class initiative boost, which adds an average of +6.5, outpacing the chronurgist's +5 from intelligence. Consider a halfling battlemaster versus vhuman chronurgist:
Battlemaster Initiative: 5 (dex) + 5 (alert) + 6.5 (ambush) = 16.5 with Lucky and Lucky
Chronurgist: 5 (dex) + 5 (intelligence) + 5 (alert) = 15 with Lucky and Chronal Shift
Chronal Shift is obviously better than halfling lucky, but that roll doesn't seem like such a sure thing. And with Chronal Shift, you're leaving yourself with 18 AC and ripe for killing if you lose the roll.
Feels funny to post a fighter build now, but here's Redcap, the murderous little battlemaster:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/profile/HeironymusZot/characters/43288500
The "pretty much" is me leaving the possibility open that there are other builds out there that haven't been shown yet that can deal enough damage to kill Dread.
Between lucky and getting an extra +1 in wisdom (by dumping charisma), I think the EK's chances have gotten significantly slimmer in the matchup. I'm even considering dropping intelligence to 14 to pick up another +1 in wisdom. I need to do the math for the yuan-ti champion vs. the microwave before I do, but I'm pretty sure 3-5 cycles will kill them regardless.
Between the percentage to win initiative, pass the save, and EK failing the counterspell and now Lucky and a better wisdom mod, I'm confident the matchup is quite strong for Dread.
Alright, Convergent Future time. I did read what you had to say De4th. I disagreed with it. You must have been typing for a while, because I actually edited a bunch of that out before you posted, because while I think that ruling does work for this stance, I think there is a better way to support it.
As I understand it, everything rests upon the word "Succeed". Defining what it means to succeed at an attack roll, ability check, or saving throw is key to understanding why this does not effect initiative.
When you succeed at something, it means there was a chance of failure. This pass/fail dynamic is important.
There is no failure in initiative. You don't risk failing to be able to do anything, no matter how low you roll. You do not risk having a different effect happen based on how high or low you roll on initiative. No matter what, everyone simply takes their turns. The tactical benefits or deficiencies of how your initiative effects you is not a black and white relationship like the pass/fail relationships of attacks and saves and most ability checks.
Without a failure state, you cannot succeed. Without a number set to draw a line between two disparate effects, Initiative is not a roll that can be defined by success and failure.
Imma leave out the point form for this post (But if you want me to go over each point I will).
You act as if I will ever actually max con (obviously I Can as their are many variations with the Chronurgist) but in reality there are a lot of spells that literally don’t care about the wizards concentration and if I’m to go first I’m not going to be hit. As with the success - failure all I got to say is the success is to beat every other thing and succeed but ehh I feel like we can agree to disagree as I feel we are both not gonna change are opinions.
Hey I just realized something for both your and my builds withe the shield spell if you have Metamagic Adept and choose subtle spell you can make your AC go up by 5 without it being Counterspelled. Subtle spell also just adds so much more power to the wizard especially against a EK build.
I'm firmly in HeironymusZot's camp that there can be no easily quantifiable success or failure for an initiative roll as it is (as I believe someone posted a link earlier) not contested. Because the result is subjective (in this case clear cut that you want to go first, but not every scenario, and because the roll isn't contested you can't say you failed if someone does go earlier). However if we're being arbitrary, we could argue that the minimum roll required to succeed on an initiative check is 1, because every roll is a success if there is no success or failure (I'm sure someone will punch holes in this but hey, let's just roll with it).
So, let's look at the ability again:
If we've determined that the only true success in rolling initiative is rolling, and the minimum success is 1, then if the opponent is within 60 ft then we can decide that they rolled one less than the minimum number needed for success, so you can decide your opponent rolled a 0, truly the only failure possible.
I should have probably given clues to what I was getting at initially, but I wanted to see if anyone else would come to the same convoluted conclusion.
With Convergent Future it has to be within the realm of a d20 (1-20) roll so rolling a 0 is impossible. As with the use of Convergent future on initiative checks I guess I just refer you to my previous 3 points on it earlier in these posts.
HeironymusZot I have a though for you get rid of Warcaster, and Resilience (Con) and replace them with Lucky and Metamagic Adept (Subtle Spell and Quickened Spell). The subtle spells means you can Counterspell any spell without being Counterspelled back also if you want you can cast any purely verbal and/or somatic spells without notice. That means when attacked you can cast shield and not be Counterspelled.
I had the thought of making my Chronurgist like Dread in that it has lots of hp too (as in perhaps ease off the initiative win route as you’ll were like no so ehh). Personally, I feel the mix of Dread’s hp Idea and my Chronurgist subclass and Feat change would make one of the best if not best (when optimized) builds for the fighter battle.
PS: With the “Fighter 20 vs wizard 20” title I feel that we can call that at least the wizard will win more of the time than not (and by not I mean like 10% of the time no more).
Diviner who just uses their portents to auto-win initiative and true polymorphs the fighter into a cabbage. Why the fancy builds?
Give them the Lucky feat to counteract a fighter's Lucky feat, just in case.
Chilling kinda vibe.