I'm playing in a full 4 player party for the first time and decided to try something special.
I made a character without any method of dealing damage and without any means to protect itself without magic. I think it's actually pretty effective! This build needs the spellpoint variant rule for full effectiveness.
Feel free to drop any tips or speculate the effectiveness.
Setup:
The character cannot willingly hurt anyone or he loses his cleric abilities. This is absolute. He can help and buff his friends in battle even if those friends hurt others. It is a matter of conscience where he draws the line, but directly causing damage is 100% forbidden, so no damage. He can use hostile spells like charms and curses etc so he is not a full pacifist. Basically it all comes down to him being a cleric and druid of rejuvenation and life.
The character is very old and fragile, but wise beyond measure.
Amazing healing ability, utility spells for every situation, protection spells.
Build (starts at lvl 5). Free point buy, arrange 73 points as you please.
Str 6, dex 8, con 10, int 18, wis 20 (inc. Lvl 4 ASI), cha 14
AC 9, neutral d8 HP
Not a single dmg spell or ability.
Mark of Scribing gnome for mental magic save advantage and utility spell hoarding.
Cleric dip 1 / Druid 4
Life cleric for Heal bonuses. DM allowed me to swap all armor profis for Arcana Expertise just for fun. I just wanted to make the character physically and martially useless. Bear with me, I promise to make this build work.
This dip gives me bonuses to druid healing spells too. Peaks at character lvl 6 when druid gets Aura of Vitality and heals 2d6+5 every turn as a bonus action. Also Goodberry heals 10×4=40points... pretty good between encounters.
And a super important spell: Sanctuary. The foundation of my survivability. As long as I don't attack others, they need a wis save to attack me. No concentration, bonus action, 1min dur. Means that I can use this on an ally who is on death saves to prevent enemies from landing killing blows while I get them healed.
+Lots of nice utility spells. 6 prepared lvl 1 spells and nice cantrips.
Land druid. Coast for Mirror Image and misty step. Lots of amazing utility spells. Absorb Elements allows me to make up for poor physical saving throws against area spells. Misty Step lets me escape grapples. Mirror Image is also not concentration. Combined with Sanctuary I am impossible to hit with attacks.
The spellpoint system allows me to cast a lot of low level spells. Effective healing and lots of buffs and druid offers me insane status effects and crowd control.
Druid wild shape for even more utility and survivability. Flying squirrel for fall damage.
Pass without trace for mega sneaking. Basically with this build I can get almost anything done. In combat I heal, buff, paralyze, protect and hinder.
Lots of ritual spells.
High Sorcery BG for MOOOOORE spells. I choose Find Familiar for utility, spying and coolness. Also cure wounds via Familiar to save my bonus action for Sanctuary if someone goes down. Druids get their wild companion but it sucks. FF is permanent and saves me one wild shape use every time.
There it is. 20 prepared spells at lvl 5 and infinite possibilities. A ton of cantrips.
Basically this all started with me whining how I always feel like I have to invest in dex or con, even if I want to play a geeky wizard. All in all I felt like I wanted to be useful in other ways than combat abilities, like young Raistlin etc.
So I decided to find a way and it got a bit out of hand - and I love it. This no-damage thing was a happy accident. I got the idea when I realized that Sanctuary was my key to having survivability without AC or con. 😄
Interesting build... So its the basic Heal-bot with more utility spells from druid. cool Idea. Reminds me of he Vow of Peace builds in 3.5ed. you dont need to sacrify DEX and CON that much, but is no harm as long as you stay away or have sanctuary up. You still need to resist being hit with AOEs or the rare moment someone saves vs sanctuary and hits the right image jeje...
You can play like that similar builds with other classes.... even wizard with pure control spells (just dont pick damage cantrips, but is OK if you want to). The most important part is that the party understands what you are doing and allow you to do your stuff for them...
Any ideas how to build a pure wizard with enough survivability without physical attributes? I would probably still go with a cleric dip for sanctuary. Cause in dnd where there is no aggro system and very few abilities to keep enemies focused on tanks, nothing is usually stopping enemies from nuking down the weak wizard very quickly.
"You still need to resist being hit with AOEs or the rare moment someone saves vs sanctuary and hits the right image jeje...:
Absorb Elements is a reaction spell for Elemental Resistance, much like Shield works. The resistance is effectively equal to a successful save for spells like Fireball etc.
"You still need to resist being hit with AOEs or the rare moment someone saves vs sanctuary and hits the right image jeje...:
Absorb Elements is a reaction spell for Elemental Resistance, much like Shield works. The resistance is effectively equal to a successful save for spells like Fireball etc.
You still have to make the save, though. And with that 8 dex, you probably won’t. And even if you do make the save, it doesn’t 0 the damage, it just makes it half of the remaining half (is my understanding, anyway). And then you’re spending your spell slots on keeping yourself up instead of your allies. It seems like even a pacifist would realize that other people aren’t pacifists, and strap on some armor to protect themselves. You can’t heal anyone if you drop.
I’m not saying don’t do it, or it won’t be viable. It seems like a cool concept. It just runs the risk of forcing the rest of the party to focus a lot on keeping you alive. Which, if everyone is on board, great, it could be fun.
I think that if I was playing alongside this build and combat started going really wrong and the person continued to do 0 damage on purpose I would never play with them again.
Would you rather they do 1 HP of damage or keep you in the fight twice as long as would be expected.
Personally if I was playing with you I would never buff you again. Until the rest of the party told me to go I would stay. I would also start charging you for any healing. Someone needs to pay for all my components.
Ah, but that's the beauty of it. I don't have to make the save. Resistance is the same as making the save, minus the lost lvl 1 spell slot. If I do make the save, which is still possible, then I can decide to halve the half or just take the half like everyone else.
I really don't think anyone in the party needs to worry about me. Enemies have to pass a dc 16 wisdom save in order to do anything directly harmful to me. IF - and this is important - they fail the throw and can't immediately redirect it so someone else, they lose the attack. And they have to do it multiple times to take me down. I'm talking several attempts at mininun, all the while the rest of the party is raising hell on them.
So they really have to be determined and stupid to even try to kill me. If it starts raining fireballs, which my dm wouldn't do, then I'm not the only one screwed.
But an area effect here and there. I can spare a lvl 1 spell for those.
As for the armor. The idea is not that I won't protect myself. It's that I do it with spells instead of physical prowess or armor. 😄
The combat goes really wrong when someone drops to 0HP, starts making Death Saves and the enemies decide to execute them on the ground. In which case they are glad that I can slap Sanctuary on them and make it stupid for the enemies to try the killing blow. Then I heal them and they can resume fighting. As opposed to them dying and their character being removed from the game for the moment.
Also. As I said, I can still use hostile spells if I need to. So I can cast Hold Person or Bane or Entangle etc.
I think with my help, the party can focus twice as much on destroying their foes, cause I keep them alive so they don't have to worry about that. 😄
The combat goes really wrong when someone drops to 0HP, starts making Death Saves and the enemies decide to execute them on the ground. In which case they are glad that I can slap Sanctuary on them and make it stupid for the enemies to try the killing blow. Then I heal them and they can resume fighting. As opposed to them dying and their character being removed from the game for the moment.
Also. As I said, I can still use hostile spells if I need to. So I can cast Hold Person or Bane or Entangle etc.
I think with my help, the party can focus twice as much on destroying their foes, cause I keep them alive so they don't have to worry about that. 😄
Yes of course.... The gist of the build is using "control spells" and defensive spells for you or your party. If you are only spending healing spells and not any controlling spell, the battle is not going as well as it should.
The other possible aspect is spell slot management, but that comes with the caster classes, and make sure you have a usefull combat cantrip to use in combat... or use Help (probably bad as you want to be away from the bad guys).
For a wizard "pacifist"... its the same idea but without healing (well there are ways to have sanctuary and cure wounds if needed)... its just more Difficult, but with a bigger array of utility and off combat spells. Use the same survivability options any wizard uses.... spells and get away from everyone (normally using spells also)....
I think that if I was playing alongside this build and combat started going really wrong and the person continued to do 0 damage on purpose I would never play with them again.
This is normally a build you discuss with the players before implementing... or played with very close friends.
The combat goes really wrong when someone drops to 0HP, starts making Death Saves and the enemies decide to execute them on the ground. In which case they are glad that I can slap Sanctuary on them and make it stupid for the enemies to try the killing blow. Then I heal them and they can resume fighting. As opposed to them dying and their character being removed from the game for the moment.
Also. As I said, I can still use hostile spells if I need to. So I can cast Hold Person or Bane or Entangle etc.
I think with my help, the party can focus twice as much on destroying their foes, cause I keep them alive so they don't have to worry about that. 😄
Yes of course.... The gist of the build is using "control spells" and defensive spells for you or your party. If you are only spending healing spells and not any controlling spell, the battle is not going as well as it should.
The other possible aspect is spell slot management, but that comes with the caster classes, and make sure you have a usefull combat cantrip to use in combat... or use Help (probably bad as you want to be away from the bad guys).
For a wizard "pacifist"... its the same idea but without healing (well there are ways to have sanctuary and cure wounds if needed)... its just more Difficult, but with a bigger array of utility and off combat spells. Use the same survivability options any wizard uses.... spells and get away from everyone (normally using spells also)....
I think that if I was playing alongside this build and combat started going really wrong and the person continued to do 0 damage on purpose I would never play with them again.
This is normally a build you discuss with the players before implementing... or played with very close friends.
Cheers. I'm thinking of possibly dipping in wizard too for those utility spells. I'm not worried about optimization because my party is pretty well rounded and able to wreak havoc and we have an amazing DM who knows how to make balanced encounters based on the party's power level. If it's super optimized for combat, he just makes tougher encounters and vice versa. That inspired me to try this in the first place. 🙂
I'm usually a HC optimizer and this is a step away from that. We usually only have 2 or 3 players + DM which requires a bit more optimization to cover enough ground. Now I want to try something entirely new.
The spellpoint also reduces the need for optimization. A 2 lvl multiclass dip postpones spell progress, but it matters less with spellpoints. Simply put, I can use those extra points to fuel lots of lower level spells as is the idea of the character.
And yeah, these are almost all close friends. 🙂 Except one and he volunteered to nerf his own ranger companion because it was a puppy. We of course recommended not to, because it's a crucial part of his class it being fierce despite of it being a puppy can easily be explained with the magical nature of the bond. But yeah, they won't mind me doing this no-damage thing. 😄
The combat goes really wrong when someone drops to 0HP, starts making Death Saves and the enemies decide to execute them on the ground. In which case they are glad that I can slap Sanctuary on them and make it stupid for the enemies to try the killing blow. Then I heal them and they can resume fighting. As opposed to them dying and their character being removed from the game for the moment.
Also. As I said, I can still use hostile spells if I need to. So I can cast Hold Person or Bane or Entangle etc.
I think with my help, the party can focus twice as much on destroying their foes, cause I keep them alive so they don't have to worry about that. 😄
Your 10 con, no con save proficiency self is going to drop concentration all the time. I get the whole "terrible physical stats for some character reason" trope, but it's really, really punishing unless you're playing in an ultra casual setting. Anything where your DM wants to challenge you with combats at all will reveal how bad it is for a caster to have terrible initiative and terrible con saves.
Please elaborate. What exactly is going to make me lose concentration more than usual?
I'll try to shed some light on my reasoning here
Sanctuary is not concentration. They need to pass a dc16 wis check before targeting me with anything hostile. That's probably less than 50% chance for almost any enemy and a lot less for most. If they fail and cannot redirect, they waste their action doing nothing, so they probably won't even try it unless they really have to. Mirror Image is also not con. So those who do get through sanctuary are likely to hit a copy and waste their action again. The odds are just against hitting me. No point in trying when you have other party members to target.
The only real threat is Area Spells. And since area damage is not something that is constantly raining on people, it's not really a constant trouble. Wizards, druids and clerics don't get con saves without feats anyway. Would a +1 or +2 really make a difference? That's 5% or 10% increase in save chance. If those saves happen a few of times per day then pure luck constitutes for much more than the 10% increase.
You know what, just go ahead and play the build and you'll get a great taste of what I'm talking about. You're so caught up in your theories I'm not going to try and convince you.
I just realized that you were the one with the super toxic "I would never play with them again comment". It's clear from just that comment that you weren't looking for a conversation or a friendly debate or anything constructive.
You then proceeded to make claims about concentration and the build being bad without any explanation WHY it is so bad or why I would be losing con. So baseless claims.
Which was followed by me explaining how I'm going to avoid those situations.
Followed by you telling me in a condescending message that I'm caught up in my theories... What? For explaining how I plan to make it work? Am I being trolled or what is this? I'm just reflecting on this build with the help of others to figure out if there are actual major flaws that I can't get around.
Anyways. I should have ignored you after the very first message. I'm here to have a good time and learn about DnD, not to be insulted.
Concentration spells... mostly buffs or controlling spells. Nothing to worry if you stay away and avoid dmg, which will happen eventually (rol of the dice).
Flaws... HP and doing no damage... which you are choosing yourself for the character. One could be avoided eventually with Tough feat, at least a little.
Area effects and any collateral effects will hurt little by little, so be wary of those and any disabling effects.... just like everyone else. Using all your defensive toys all rounds will consume your spellpoints fast.
The advice of getting the feel while playing it, its actually on point. There you'll see what you are missing or need the most as you level, and how the party sinergizes better.
Thanks! I actually replaced my High Sorcery BG spell with Shield. I thought I wouldn't need it. And in combat it probaly won't make a difference, but it will in surprise rounds and the first rounds of initiative that I likely lose. 14ac is still very little, but the risk of dying during the first round is probably in a gang-up by minion level enemies. Against 9ac they almost certainly all hit, but with 14ac there is maybe a 30-40% chance for them to miss.
I plan to take the Alert Feat for +5 ini and surprise immunity to avoid surprise rounds and being last in initiative. Being attacked before I get sanctuary up is perhaps the biggest risk.
I might dip wizard too for Gift of Alacrity (d8 initiative bonus).
I worry about those area effects, though. Not really those elemental ones, but there are plenty of necrotic area spells too.
Btw. A party member was super thrilled about me going full support. 😄
That problem with concentration spells is a good point. Maybe not so much in terms of effectiveness, but in terms of boring. 😅 My defensive spells aren't concentration, but I have very few non-concentration things to do. So I can do one thing at a time aside from heals.
I need to look at the spell list to find something to do, so that combat is not just maintaining con on one spell. 😅
The real risk I see with this is depending on Sanctuary for defense. A DC 16 wisdom save isn't an impossible number to pass and there are plenty of enemies with good wisdom bonuses. Also, the spell only has a duration of 1 minute so you're going to be forced to burn a spell slot on it every time you get into combat.
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Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This concentration problem seems like a druid problem in general, not just this build.
Druids get very few instant spells, but ignoring dmg spells removes a few more from the already limited list.
Let's break it down to see what my combat might look like.
Aaaand I just realized a major problem. Forgot that I can't cast an area spell and then sanctuary as a BA because I can't cast two spells in one round. Let's see.
Turn 1. Bonus Action: Sanctuary. Action: Maybe a utility/support cantrip or Dash/disengage for better position etc.
Turn 2. Area spell or Aura of Vitality. As long as the area spell doesn't affect any enemies at the moment of casting so it doesn't break Sanc. If they later walk into it, that's not my problem. Dm verified this.
Turn 3. Bonus action use of Aura of Vitality. Cure wounds for additional healing if needed / Lesser restoration to remove poisons or other conditions, which is actually a pretty common problem / Maybe Mirror Image for extra protection / Dispel magic for those nasty effects / protection from poison / Plant Growth (instantaneous) / Daylight to dispel darkness / Sanctuary on others / Revivify is someone dies / Command (breaks sanctuary) / Spare the dying
Following turns. Same as turn 3.
A dip in wiz at some point would get me extra non con spells: Color spray, false life, grease, magnify gravite, puppet, sleep. So quite a few actually.
So here are some thoughts.
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Finland GMT/UTC +2
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I'm playing in a full 4 player party for the first time and decided to try something special.
I made a character without any method of dealing damage and without any means to protect itself without magic. I think it's actually pretty effective! This build needs the spellpoint variant rule for full effectiveness.
Feel free to drop any tips or speculate the effectiveness.
Setup:
The character cannot willingly hurt anyone or he loses his cleric abilities. This is absolute. He can help and buff his friends in battle even if those friends hurt others. It is a matter of conscience where he draws the line, but directly causing damage is 100% forbidden, so no damage. He can use hostile spells like charms and curses etc so he is not a full pacifist. Basically it all comes down to him being a cleric and druid of rejuvenation and life.
The character is very old and fragile, but wise beyond measure.
Amazing healing ability, utility spells for every situation, protection spells.
Build (starts at lvl 5). Free point buy, arrange 73 points as you please.
Str 6, dex 8, con 10, int 18, wis 20 (inc. Lvl 4 ASI), cha 14
AC 9, neutral d8 HP
Not a single dmg spell or ability.
Mark of Scribing gnome for mental magic save advantage and utility spell hoarding.
Cleric dip 1 / Druid 4
Life cleric for Heal bonuses. DM allowed me to swap all armor profis for Arcana Expertise just for fun. I just wanted to make the character physically and martially useless. Bear with me, I promise to make this build work.
This dip gives me bonuses to druid healing spells too. Peaks at character lvl 6 when druid gets Aura of Vitality and heals 2d6+5 every turn as a bonus action. Also Goodberry heals 10×4=40points... pretty good between encounters.
And a super important spell: Sanctuary. The foundation of my survivability. As long as I don't attack others, they need a wis save to attack me. No concentration, bonus action, 1min dur. Means that I can use this on an ally who is on death saves to prevent enemies from landing killing blows while I get them healed.
+Lots of nice utility spells. 6 prepared lvl 1 spells and nice cantrips.
Land druid. Coast for Mirror Image and misty step. Lots of amazing utility spells. Absorb Elements allows me to make up for poor physical saving throws against area spells. Misty Step lets me escape grapples. Mirror Image is also not concentration. Combined with Sanctuary I am impossible to hit with attacks.
The spellpoint system allows me to cast a lot of low level spells. Effective healing and lots of buffs and druid offers me insane status effects and crowd control.
Druid wild shape for even more utility and survivability. Flying squirrel for fall damage.
Pass without trace for mega sneaking. Basically with this build I can get almost anything done. In combat I heal, buff, paralyze, protect and hinder.
Lots of ritual spells.
High Sorcery BG for MOOOOORE spells. I choose Find Familiar for utility, spying and coolness. Also cure wounds via Familiar to save my bonus action for Sanctuary if someone goes down. Druids get their wild companion but it sucks. FF is permanent and saves me one wild shape use every time.
There it is. 20 prepared spells at lvl 5 and infinite possibilities. A ton of cantrips.
But not damaging! 😄
What do you think?
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Basically this all started with me whining how I always feel like I have to invest in dex or con, even if I want to play a geeky wizard. All in all I felt like I wanted to be useful in other ways than combat abilities, like young Raistlin etc.
So I decided to find a way and it got a bit out of hand - and I love it. This no-damage thing was a happy accident. I got the idea when I realized that Sanctuary was my key to having survivability without AC or con. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Interesting build... So its the basic Heal-bot with more utility spells from druid. cool Idea. Reminds me of he Vow of Peace builds in 3.5ed.
you dont need to sacrify DEX and CON that much, but is no harm as long as you stay away or have sanctuary up. You still need to resist being hit with AOEs or the rare moment someone saves vs sanctuary and hits the right image jeje...
You can play like that similar builds with other classes.... even wizard with pure control spells (just dont pick damage cantrips, but is OK if you want to). The most important part is that the party understands what you are doing and allow you to do your stuff for them...
Any ideas how to build a pure wizard with enough survivability without physical attributes? I would probably still go with a cleric dip for sanctuary. Cause in dnd where there is no aggro system and very few abilities to keep enemies focused on tanks, nothing is usually stopping enemies from nuking down the weak wizard very quickly.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
"You still need to resist being hit with AOEs or the rare moment someone saves vs sanctuary and hits the right image jeje...:
Absorb Elements is a reaction spell for Elemental Resistance, much like Shield works. The resistance is effectively equal to a successful save for spells like Fireball etc.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
You still have to make the save, though. And with that 8 dex, you probably won’t.
And even if you do make the save, it doesn’t 0 the damage, it just makes it half of the remaining half (is my understanding, anyway). And then you’re spending your spell slots on keeping yourself up instead of your allies. It seems like even a pacifist would realize that other people aren’t pacifists, and strap on some armor to protect themselves. You can’t heal anyone if you drop.
I’m not saying don’t do it, or it won’t be viable. It seems like a cool concept. It just runs the risk of forcing the rest of the party to focus a lot on keeping you alive. Which, if everyone is on board, great, it could be fun.
I think that if I was playing alongside this build and combat started going really wrong and the person continued to do 0 damage on purpose I would never play with them again.
Would you rather they do 1 HP of damage or keep you in the fight twice as long as would be expected.
Personally if I was playing with you I would never buff you again. Until the rest of the party told me to go I would stay. I would also start charging you for any healing. Someone needs to pay for all my components.
Ah, but that's the beauty of it. I don't have to make the save. Resistance is the same as making the save, minus the lost lvl 1 spell slot. If I do make the save, which is still possible, then I can decide to halve the half or just take the half like everyone else.
I really don't think anyone in the party needs to worry about me. Enemies have to pass a dc 16 wisdom save in order to do anything directly harmful to me. IF - and this is important - they fail the throw and can't immediately redirect it so someone else, they lose the attack. And they have to do it multiple times to take me down. I'm talking several attempts at mininun, all the while the rest of the party is raising hell on them.
So they really have to be determined and stupid to even try to kill me. If it starts raining fireballs, which my dm wouldn't do, then I'm not the only one screwed.
But an area effect here and there. I can spare a lvl 1 spell for those.
As for the armor. The idea is not that I won't protect myself. It's that I do it with spells instead of physical prowess or armor. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
The combat goes really wrong when someone drops to 0HP, starts making Death Saves and the enemies decide to execute them on the ground. In which case they are glad that I can slap Sanctuary on them and make it stupid for the enemies to try the killing blow. Then I heal them and they can resume fighting. As opposed to them dying and their character being removed from the game for the moment.
Also. As I said, I can still use hostile spells if I need to. So I can cast Hold Person or Bane or Entangle etc.
I think with my help, the party can focus twice as much on destroying their foes, cause I keep them alive so they don't have to worry about that. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Yes of course.... The gist of the build is using "control spells" and defensive spells for you or your party. If you are only spending healing spells and not any controlling spell, the battle is not going as well as it should.
The other possible aspect is spell slot management, but that comes with the caster classes, and make sure you have a usefull combat cantrip to use in combat... or use Help (probably bad as you want to be away from the bad guys).
For a wizard "pacifist"... its the same idea but without healing (well there are ways to have sanctuary and cure wounds if needed)... its just more Difficult, but with a bigger array of utility and off combat spells. Use the same survivability options any wizard uses.... spells and get away from everyone (normally using spells also)....
This is normally a build you discuss with the players before implementing... or played with very close friends.
Cheers. I'm thinking of possibly dipping in wizard too for those utility spells. I'm not worried about optimization because my party is pretty well rounded and able to wreak havoc and we have an amazing DM who knows how to make balanced encounters based on the party's power level. If it's super optimized for combat, he just makes tougher encounters and vice versa. That inspired me to try this in the first place. 🙂
I'm usually a HC optimizer and this is a step away from that. We usually only have 2 or 3 players + DM which requires a bit more optimization to cover enough ground. Now I want to try something entirely new.
The spellpoint also reduces the need for optimization. A 2 lvl multiclass dip postpones spell progress, but it matters less with spellpoints. Simply put, I can use those extra points to fuel lots of lower level spells as is the idea of the character.
And yeah, these are almost all close friends. 🙂 Except one and he volunteered to nerf his own ranger companion because it was a puppy. We of course recommended not to, because it's a crucial part of his class it being fierce despite of it being a puppy can easily be explained with the magical nature of the bond. But yeah, they won't mind me doing this no-damage thing. 😄
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Your 10 con, no con save proficiency self is going to drop concentration all the time. I get the whole "terrible physical stats for some character reason" trope, but it's really, really punishing unless you're playing in an ultra casual setting. Anything where your DM wants to challenge you with combats at all will reveal how bad it is for a caster to have terrible initiative and terrible con saves.
Please elaborate. What exactly is going to make me lose concentration more than usual?
I'll try to shed some light on my reasoning here
Sanctuary is not concentration. They need to pass a dc16 wis check before targeting me with anything hostile. That's probably less than 50% chance for almost any enemy and a lot less for most. If they fail and cannot redirect, they waste their action doing nothing, so they probably won't even try it unless they really have to. Mirror Image is also not con. So those who do get through sanctuary are likely to hit a copy and waste their action again. The odds are just against hitting me. No point in trying when you have other party members to target.
The only real threat is Area Spells. And since area damage is not something that is constantly raining on people, it's not really a constant trouble. Wizards, druids and clerics don't get con saves without feats anyway. Would a +1 or +2 really make a difference? That's 5% or 10% increase in save chance. If those saves happen a few of times per day then pure luck constitutes for much more than the 10% increase.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
You know what, just go ahead and play the build and you'll get a great taste of what I'm talking about. You're so caught up in your theories I'm not going to try and convince you.
I just realized that you were the one with the super toxic "I would never play with them again comment". It's clear from just that comment that you weren't looking for a conversation or a friendly debate or anything constructive.
You then proceeded to make claims about concentration and the build being bad without any explanation WHY it is so bad or why I would be losing con. So baseless claims.
Which was followed by me explaining how I'm going to avoid those situations.
Followed by you telling me in a condescending message that I'm caught up in my theories... What? For explaining how I plan to make it work? Am I being trolled or what is this? I'm just reflecting on this build with the help of others to figure out if there are actual major flaws that I can't get around.
Anyways. I should have ignored you after the very first message. I'm here to have a good time and learn about DnD, not to be insulted.
So yeah, let's stop talking.
Finland GMT/UTC +2
Concentration spells... mostly buffs or controlling spells. Nothing to worry if you stay away and avoid dmg, which will happen eventually (rol of the dice).
Flaws... HP and doing no damage... which you are choosing yourself for the character. One could be avoided eventually with Tough feat, at least a little.
Area effects and any collateral effects will hurt little by little, so be wary of those and any disabling effects.... just like everyone else. Using all your defensive toys all rounds will consume your spellpoints fast.
The advice of getting the feel while playing it, its actually on point. There you'll see what you are missing or need the most as you level, and how the party sinergizes better.
Thanks! I actually replaced my High Sorcery BG spell with Shield. I thought I wouldn't need it. And in combat it probaly won't make a difference, but it will in surprise rounds and the first rounds of initiative that I likely lose. 14ac is still very little, but the risk of dying during the first round is probably in a gang-up by minion level enemies. Against 9ac they almost certainly all hit, but with 14ac there is maybe a 30-40% chance for them to miss.
I plan to take the Alert Feat for +5 ini and surprise immunity to avoid surprise rounds and being last in initiative. Being attacked before I get sanctuary up is perhaps the biggest risk.
I might dip wizard too for Gift of Alacrity (d8 initiative bonus).
I worry about those area effects, though. Not really those elemental ones, but there are plenty of necrotic area spells too.
Btw. A party member was super thrilled about me going full support. 😄
That problem with concentration spells is a good point. Maybe not so much in terms of effectiveness, but in terms of boring. 😅 My defensive spells aren't concentration, but I have very few non-concentration things to do. So I can do one thing at a time aside from heals.
I need to look at the spell list to find something to do, so that combat is not just maintaining con on one spell. 😅
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The real risk I see with this is depending on Sanctuary for defense. A DC 16 wisdom save isn't an impossible number to pass and there are plenty of enemies with good wisdom bonuses. Also, the spell only has a duration of 1 minute so you're going to be forced to burn a spell slot on it every time you get into combat.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
This concentration problem seems like a druid problem in general, not just this build.
Druids get very few instant spells, but ignoring dmg spells removes a few more from the already limited list.
Let's break it down to see what my combat might look like.
Aaaand I just realized a major problem. Forgot that I can't cast an area spell and then sanctuary as a BA because I can't cast two spells in one round. Let's see.
Turn 1. Bonus Action: Sanctuary. Action: Maybe a utility/support cantrip or Dash/disengage for better position etc.
Turn 2. Area spell or Aura of Vitality. As long as the area spell doesn't affect any enemies at the moment of casting so it doesn't break Sanc. If they later walk into it, that's not my problem. Dm verified this.
Turn 3. Bonus action use of Aura of Vitality. Cure wounds for additional healing if needed / Lesser restoration to remove poisons or other conditions, which is actually a pretty common problem / Maybe Mirror Image for extra protection / Dispel magic for those nasty effects / protection from poison / Plant Growth (instantaneous) / Daylight to dispel darkness / Sanctuary on others / Revivify is someone dies / Command (breaks sanctuary) / Spare the dying
Following turns. Same as turn 3.
A dip in wiz at some point would get me extra non con spells: Color spray, false life, grease, magnify gravite, puppet, sleep. So quite a few actually.
So here are some thoughts.
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