So I am playing in a level 21 one shot in a couple of weeks, we can use any of the books to make our character and we get to have 1 boon of our choice with a starting gold of 100,000gp to buy magic items, the only ban is going 20 levels into druid. It will be played like the binding of issac where we will be going into room after room killing things with occasional short rests and long rests inbetween. What would people play, and what is the most consistant damage you could come up with to kill creatures.
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The question's too open-ended to give a good answer. There's technically no such thing as level 21 and you don't mention what types of enemies you'll be fighting or how frequent the rests will be. Also no mention of magic item availability.
As far as consitency goes, martial classes and warlocks will likely be your best bet in the long run since they can put out good baseline damage without needing once-per-day resources.
Depends on how cheese-ass you want to be. You can be nice, or you can ensure that on the day of this one-shot, your DM receives a grim reminder.
If you're thinking the Grim Reminder route? 17 Sorcerer / 3 Warlock. Divine Soul (much as I personally despise it) for access to Cleric magic, holy wings, and healing-with-advantage. Fill out your spell list as you choose, taking Wish at level 17 and being prepared to use its default mode (any level 8 or lower spell is yours for free), and trade one something-else spell at Sorc level 17 for Psychic Scream or Meteor Swarm, in case you need to turn your ninth-level spell slot into a giant AoE "FUGG YEW". Nets you 17 Sorcery points and four Metamagic options; take Quickened, Subtle, Heightened, and Twinned. Quickened for Sorclock gatling Eldritch Blasting, Subtle for shenanigans, Heightened to try and force a key save-or-suck spell to work, and Twinned to duplicate your healing magic and make it stretch further.
Warlock 3 for either Tomelock or Chainlock. Chainlock allows you to have an invisible psychic-linked sapient familiar that is an amazing scout, useful for Roguelike-style games where knowing what's in the next room could be a huge edge. Gift of the Ever-Living Ones also allows you to maximize dice rolls for healing yourself if your familiar is near you, which is amazing for endurance slogs like this. ChainlockTomelock lets you load up on a billion cantrips; between Sorcerer 17, Warlock 2, and Pact of the Tome you'd have 11 cantrips before racial selection, which is bonkers helpful. Book of Ancient Secrets is less amazing for low-level warlocks, but you could still get some useful rituals. Personally I'd recommend Chain, for improved self-healing and awesome scouting. Obviously Eldritcth Blast/Agonizing Blast for dealing fighter-level attack damage at 120 feet with a cantrip. 3rd level Warlock lets you 2nd-level Pact Magic; take Hold Person as one of your Pact spells. Recommend Archfey patron so you can add Faerie Fire, one of the best/most underrated support spells in the game, to your Pact Magic list. Advantage on all attack rolls is huge, and benefits your Consistent Damage goals enormously.
Insofar as magic items go? -1x Tome of Leadership and Influence, letting you get to 22 Charisma. That extra +1 to your Charisma spell attacks, your Agonizing Blast damage, and both your Sorc and Warlock saves will be killer. ~50k -1x Rod of the Pactkeeper (rare) giving you +2 to your Eldritch Blast rolls and to your Hold Person/Faerie Fire save DC (as well as any other save from your Pact Magic list). You can replace this with a Wand of the War Mage if you have leveled spell attacks on your Sorc list you'd really like to land, but it won't do spank for your saves. ~5-10k -1x Amulet of Health, for a 19 Con score free of charge. Tank Con in character creation because you know you'll be able to use this, instead. ~5-10k -1x Mantle of Spell Resistance, because you'll be hovering above the battlefield on a broom most of the time and you don't want to get hit with crazy disable spells. Also ~5-10k 1x Broom of Flying, for free permanent non-attunement flight. ~500gp, because magic item pricing is borked as shit. 1x Bag of Holding/Handy Haversack, stuffed with useful shit. -assorted and sundry cool Uncommon non-attunement magical items, like Immovable Rods, Ropes of Climbing, Caps of Water Breathing, and other shit. if he's gonna let you have whatever you want inside 100k, make him regret it and enjoy the wild ride.
Heh. Enjoy being a flying magical machine gunnery with spell resistance, Magic Targeting Glitter, and more damage available to you than anything else can land without crits.
Crown of Stars, Animate Objects, Scorching Ray, Hex
CoS isn't concentration, so it basically just gives you a free 4d12 bonus action each round. Animated Objects move on their own turn, so they don't take up your action or bonus action (although you have to spend a bonus action directing them at a new target), and it essentially gives you 10 additional attacks each round. Hex pairs well with Scorching Ray (or any spell that makes multiple attacks... Eldritch Blast is a solid option as well if you don't want to spend the spell slots), since that adds a D6 to every attack (and that includes the Crown of Stars attack).
It's a lot of set up, though. Crown of Stars lasts an hour so you can at least set that up ahead of time.
There's probably a better combination of spells and abilities that runs on this same theme of just getting a ton of attacks out each round, but this is what I kind of ended up with on accident in my own game.
I ended up with this combination playing a Bard/Warlock, but it would be easier to pull off with a Sorceror/Warlock combo.
Edit: I forgot that Hex and animate Objects are both concentration spells lol I guess you just have to pick which one works best for your game.
I second sorlock. If your DM allows it, you can be a race that doesnt require sleep or take the aspect of the moon invocation and turn 1 long rest into 8 short rests which you can use to generate up to 32 sorcery points and convert them into spell slots. (This tactic is known as coffeelock).
Their high level feature to cast 2 level 3 spells an unlimited number of times is Extremely powerful. Literally all the fireballs you want. 8d6 in a big area every turn is pretty big. For fun since you get a boon you can add in the boon of quick casting. So a bonus action fireball every turn. Granted it limits your other action to a cantrip, but it still means you can get a 4d10 firebolt to go along with your fireball. using your spell mastery with dragon breath, means every turn you could fireball as a bonus for 8d6, then use your action to fire breath for 3d6 (although a much smaller radius). Still doing 11d6 damage in an AoE every single turn is nice.
Biggest hangup for the group is going to be Healing / preventing damage. Assuming your DM allows it, the best solution is Healing spirit, as careful safety dances after casting it will heal the whole group for 20d6 for a single level 2 slot. If long rests are REALLY hard to come by it might be worth optimizing it more, like going life cleric 1 / druid 19. So its 20d6+80.
Staff of the magi is a solid magic item if able to be acquired, as the wizard with a single target spell could help charge it back and effectively translate their level 1 spells into whatever the SoM can cast (which is a fair bit) along with being an immensely powerful item anyways.
Another fun character is the zealot barbarian. As at level 20 they are almost literally unkillable, as they have unlimited rages, rages last full duration, and they cannot die while raging. So classic GWM+Reckless strikes and rage means plenty of damage,
Scout rogue is also solid, as you should get two sneak attacks a round for most situations. And since that comes in at 17 you can actually dip another class to combo it up (gloomstalker seems tempting if you guys will be in the dark). Its a lot of D6s to throw around.
Starting at level 20 also lets you make some interesting combos that might be a pain to build up to naturally. Hexblade 12 Paladin 8 lets you get lifedrinker, and hopefully polearm master+gwm. So that you are dealing your cha bonus twice every time you hit. If you are devotion you can use your channel to REALLY up your to hit. The aura is really handy for your whole group.
Even without coffeelocking, Sorlock is ridiculous for consistent heavy damage. My group reminded me of the existence of the Illusionist's Bracelets, which are absolutely gobshyte insane for anything with Agonizing Blast, but that's a Very Rare item so it'd either require you to give up the Tome of Leadership and Influence or give up every other item you get. Assuming Xanathar's Guide didn't lie to me about item prices. Illusionist's Bracelets basically amount to a free double Eldritch Blast every turn though, which saves on sorcery points.
personally, I'd probably go with the Tome myself and just be a bit cautious with my multi-blasting, save it for when something desperately needs to die. Even without Quicken Spell, ToLaI means your Agonizing Blast hits for 4d10+24 if all the bolts hit, and with a +14 to spell attack with 22 Charisma and a _2 Pact Keeper rod, that's a reasonably safe bet much of the time.
Their high level feature to cast 2 level 3 spells an unlimited number of times is Extremely powerful. Literally all the fireballs you want. 8d6 in a big area every turn is pretty big. For fun since you get a boon you can add in the boon of quick casting. So a bonus action fireball every turn. Granted it limits your other action to a cantrip, but it still means you can get a 4d10 firebolt to go along with your fireball. using your spell mastery with dragon breath, means every turn you could fireball as a bonus for 8d6, then use your action to fire breath for 3d6 (although a much smaller radius). Still doing 11d6 damage in an AoE every single turn is nice.
You're confusing Signature Spells with Spell Mastery. The latter lets you cast a single 1st- and 2nd-level spell an unlimited number of times. On the other hand:
Signature Spells
When you reach 20th level, you gain mastery over two powerful spells and can cast them with little effort. Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest. (emphasis mine).
I've actually been doing some min maxing ideas to show some people that I can go way overboard, but choose not to in games. I kinda messed one up by missing 2 details, but it still should be very overpowered, and you can do very consistent damage with it. There's also 4 levels in this certain situation that are unused, because I'm still revising it.
These numbers are based around the total damage dealt when casting Steel Wind Strike. Using just a 6th level spell slot, a bardic inspiration, a daily ability lasting 1 minute, a 5th level spell slot, and some health doing your blood rite, you get a maximum total damage of 683. Tenser's Transformation with the lance radiant soul and crimson rite already gets you a lot of damage as well, and the 688 isn't event counting a critical. The highest damage to a single target would be 176.
As a note: Steel Wind Strike doesn't actually deal weapon damage. It seems like it ought to, it really does, but mechanically it deals force damage without involving your weapon save as a material component. Unlike Green Flame/Booming Blade, SWS never involves an attack with the weapon and thus does not trigger any of your weapon buffs unless your DM homebrews otherwise.
Your post is an example of why a DM should not necessarily homebrew otherwise :P
Heh. Players are meant to think they're attacking with their weapon at supersonic speeds, but if you remove the fluff and just list out the mechanical bits, it looks like follows:
"Select up to 5 targets within 60'. Make a melee spell attack against each. MSA deals 6d10 damage on hit, null on miss. Player can opt to teleport next to one target struck by this spell at the end of the spell. Components: somatic, material (melee weapon worth at least 1 silver piece)."
Melee spell attack could mean a sword swipe, or could mean simply a touch, a'la Inflict Wounds. There's nothing actually written in the spell about using your material component to hit people with.
So I am playing in a level 21 one shot in a couple of weeks, we can use any of the books to make our character and we get to have 1 boon of our choice with a starting gold of 100,000gp to buy magic items, the only ban is going 20 levels into druid. It will be played like the binding of issac where we will be going into room after room killing things with occasional short rests and long rests inbetween. What would people play, and what is the most consistant damage you could come up with to kill creatures.
The question's too open-ended to give a good answer. There's technically no such thing as level 21 and you don't mention what types of enemies you'll be fighting or how frequent the rests will be. Also no mention of magic item availability.
As far as consitency goes, martial classes and warlocks will likely be your best bet in the long run since they can put out good baseline damage without needing once-per-day resources.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
Depends on how cheese-ass you want to be. You can be nice, or you can ensure that on the day of this one-shot, your DM receives a grim reminder.
If you're thinking the Grim Reminder route? 17 Sorcerer / 3 Warlock. Divine Soul (much as I personally despise it) for access to Cleric magic, holy wings, and healing-with-advantage. Fill out your spell list as you choose, taking Wish at level 17 and being prepared to use its default mode (any level 8 or lower spell is yours for free), and trade one something-else spell at Sorc level 17 for Psychic Scream or Meteor Swarm, in case you need to turn your ninth-level spell slot into a giant AoE "FUGG YEW". Nets you 17 Sorcery points and four Metamagic options; take Quickened, Subtle, Heightened, and Twinned. Quickened for Sorclock gatling Eldritch Blasting, Subtle for shenanigans, Heightened to try and force a key save-or-suck spell to work, and Twinned to duplicate your healing magic and make it stretch further.
Warlock 3 for either Tomelock or Chainlock. Chainlock allows you to have an invisible psychic-linked sapient familiar that is an amazing scout, useful for Roguelike-style games where knowing what's in the next room could be a huge edge. Gift of the Ever-Living Ones also allows you to maximize dice rolls for healing yourself if your familiar is near you, which is amazing for endurance slogs like this. ChainlockTomelock lets you load up on a billion cantrips; between Sorcerer 17, Warlock 2, and Pact of the Tome you'd have 11 cantrips before racial selection, which is bonkers helpful. Book of Ancient Secrets is less amazing for low-level warlocks, but you could still get some useful rituals. Personally I'd recommend Chain, for improved self-healing and awesome scouting. Obviously Eldritcth Blast/Agonizing Blast for dealing fighter-level attack damage at 120 feet with a cantrip. 3rd level Warlock lets you 2nd-level Pact Magic; take Hold Person as one of your Pact spells. Recommend Archfey patron so you can add Faerie Fire, one of the best/most underrated support spells in the game, to your Pact Magic list. Advantage on all attack rolls is huge, and benefits your Consistent Damage goals enormously.
Insofar as magic items go?
-1x Tome of Leadership and Influence, letting you get to 22 Charisma. That extra +1 to your Charisma spell attacks, your Agonizing Blast damage, and both your Sorc and Warlock saves will be killer. ~50k
-1x Rod of the Pactkeeper (rare) giving you +2 to your Eldritch Blast rolls and to your Hold Person/Faerie Fire save DC (as well as any other save from your Pact Magic list). You can replace this with a Wand of the War Mage if you have leveled spell attacks on your Sorc list you'd really like to land, but it won't do spank for your saves. ~5-10k
-1x Amulet of Health, for a 19 Con score free of charge. Tank Con in character creation because you know you'll be able to use this, instead. ~5-10k
-1x Mantle of Spell Resistance, because you'll be hovering above the battlefield on a broom most of the time and you don't want to get hit with crazy disable spells. Also ~5-10k
1x Broom of Flying, for free permanent non-attunement flight. ~500gp, because magic item pricing is borked as shit.
1x Bag of Holding/Handy Haversack, stuffed with useful shit.
-assorted and sundry cool Uncommon non-attunement magical items, like Immovable Rods, Ropes of Climbing, Caps of Water Breathing, and other shit. if he's gonna let you have whatever you want inside 100k, make him regret it and enjoy the wild ride.
Heh. Enjoy being a flying magical machine gunnery with spell resistance, Magic Targeting Glitter, and more damage available to you than anything else can land without crits.
Please do not contact or message me.
Here's a combo I kind of stumbled on...
Crown of Stars, Animate Objects, Scorching Ray, Hex
CoS isn't concentration, so it basically just gives you a free 4d12 bonus action each round. Animated Objects move on their own turn, so they don't take up your action or bonus action (although you have to spend a bonus action directing them at a new target), and it essentially gives you 10 additional attacks each round. Hex pairs well with Scorching Ray (or any spell that makes multiple attacks... Eldritch Blast is a solid option as well if you don't want to spend the spell slots), since that adds a D6 to every attack (and that includes the Crown of Stars attack).
It's a lot of set up, though. Crown of Stars lasts an hour so you can at least set that up ahead of time.
There's probably a better combination of spells and abilities that runs on this same theme of just getting a ton of attacks out each round, but this is what I kind of ended up with on accident in my own game.
I ended up with this combination playing a Bard/Warlock, but it would be easier to pull off with a Sorceror/Warlock combo.
Edit: I forgot that Hex and animate Objects are both concentration spells lol I guess you just have to pick which one works best for your game.
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I second sorlock. If your DM allows it, you can be a race that doesnt require sleep or take the aspect of the moon invocation and turn 1 long rest into 8 short rests which you can use to generate up to 32 sorcery points and convert them into spell slots. (This tactic is known as coffeelock).
I would say wizard would be a solid go to.
Their high level feature to cast 2 level 3 spells an unlimited number of times is Extremely powerful. Literally all the fireballs you want. 8d6 in a big area every turn is pretty big. For fun since you get a boon you can add in the boon of quick casting. So a bonus action fireball every turn. Granted it limits your other action to a cantrip, but it still means you can get a 4d10 firebolt to go along with your fireball. using your spell mastery with dragon breath, means every turn you could fireball as a bonus for 8d6, then use your action to fire breath for 3d6 (although a much smaller radius). Still doing 11d6 damage in an AoE every single turn is nice.
Biggest hangup for the group is going to be Healing / preventing damage. Assuming your DM allows it, the best solution is Healing spirit, as careful safety dances after casting it will heal the whole group for 20d6 for a single level 2 slot. If long rests are REALLY hard to come by it might be worth optimizing it more, like going life cleric 1 / druid 19. So its 20d6+80.
Staff of the magi is a solid magic item if able to be acquired, as the wizard with a single target spell could help charge it back and effectively translate their level 1 spells into whatever the SoM can cast (which is a fair bit) along with being an immensely powerful item anyways.
Another fun character is the zealot barbarian. As at level 20 they are almost literally unkillable, as they have unlimited rages, rages last full duration, and they cannot die while raging. So classic GWM+Reckless strikes and rage means plenty of damage,
Scout rogue is also solid, as you should get two sneak attacks a round for most situations. And since that comes in at 17 you can actually dip another class to combo it up (gloomstalker seems tempting if you guys will be in the dark). Its a lot of D6s to throw around.
Starting at level 20 also lets you make some interesting combos that might be a pain to build up to naturally. Hexblade 12 Paladin 8 lets you get lifedrinker, and hopefully polearm master+gwm. So that you are dealing your cha bonus twice every time you hit. If you are devotion you can use your channel to REALLY up your to hit. The aura is really handy for your whole group.
Even without coffeelocking, Sorlock is ridiculous for consistent heavy damage. My group reminded me of the existence of the Illusionist's Bracelets, which are absolutely gobshyte insane for anything with Agonizing Blast, but that's a Very Rare item so it'd either require you to give up the Tome of Leadership and Influence or give up every other item you get. Assuming Xanathar's Guide didn't lie to me about item prices. Illusionist's Bracelets basically amount to a free double Eldritch Blast every turn though, which saves on sorcery points.
personally, I'd probably go with the Tome myself and just be a bit cautious with my multi-blasting, save it for when something desperately needs to die. Even without Quicken Spell, ToLaI means your Agonizing Blast hits for 4d10+24 if all the bolts hit, and with a +14 to spell attack with 22 Charisma and a _2 Pact Keeper rod, that's a reasonably safe bet much of the time.
Please do not contact or message me.
You're confusing Signature Spells with Spell Mastery. The latter lets you cast a single 1st- and 2nd-level spell an unlimited number of times. On the other hand:
Signature Spells
When you reach 20th level, you gain mastery over two powerful spells and can cast them with little effort. Choose two 3rd-level wizard spells in your spellbook as your signature spells. You always have these spells prepared, they don’t count against the number of spells you have prepared, and you can cast each of them once at 3rd level without expending a spell slot. When you do so, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest. (emphasis mine).
Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in awhile.
I've actually been doing some min maxing ideas to show some people that I can go way overboard, but choose not to in games. I kinda messed one up by missing 2 details, but it still should be very overpowered, and you can do very consistent damage with it. There's also 4 levels in this certain situation that are unused, because I'm still revising it.
Whispers, 15 Bard, 1 Fighter, 1 Blood Hunter, Dueling
48 - Psychic Blades
95 - Lance on Horse with Strength and Dueling
20 - Crimson Rite
120 - Tenser's Transformation
300 - Steel Wind Strike
105 - Radiant Soul
These numbers are based around the total damage dealt when casting Steel Wind Strike. Using just a 6th level spell slot, a bardic inspiration, a daily ability lasting 1 minute, a 5th level spell slot, and some health doing your blood rite, you get a maximum total damage of 683. Tenser's Transformation with the lance radiant soul and crimson rite already gets you a lot of damage as well, and the 688 isn't event counting a critical. The highest damage to a single target would be 176.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
As a note: Steel Wind Strike doesn't actually deal weapon damage. It seems like it ought to, it really does, but mechanically it deals force damage without involving your weapon save as a material component. Unlike Green Flame/Booming Blade, SWS never involves an attack with the weapon and thus does not trigger any of your weapon buffs unless your DM homebrews otherwise.
Your post is an example of why a DM should not necessarily homebrew otherwise :P
Please do not contact or message me.
Huh, good to know. I thought it did since it said you make a melee spell attack and flourish a weapon.
Also known as CrafterB and DankMemer.
Here, have some homebrew classes! Subclasses to? Why not races. Feats, feats as well. I have a lot of magic items. Lastly I got monsters, fun, fun times.
Heh. Players are meant to think they're attacking with their weapon at supersonic speeds, but if you remove the fluff and just list out the mechanical bits, it looks like follows:
"Select up to 5 targets within 60'. Make a melee spell attack against each. MSA deals 6d10 damage on hit, null on miss. Player can opt to teleport next to one target struck by this spell at the end of the spell. Components: somatic, material (melee weapon worth at least 1 silver piece)."
Melee spell attack could mean a sword swipe, or could mean simply a touch, a'la Inflict Wounds. There's nothing actually written in the spell about using your material component to hit people with.
Please do not contact or message me.
Glamour Bard is really strong.
Plus all of the other Bard goodies (Magical Secrets)
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