Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
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Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
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I see a few things wrong here.
1. You're getting 20 attacks from 4 attacks + action surge (4 more) plus 3 hastes (4*3), right? That's improper. First of all, effects of the same name don't (can't) stack. See page 205 of the PHB2014 for spell effects specifically. And no, using a potion of speed does not bypass this rule. So, you may have at maximum one haste. That leaves you with 4+4+4 attacks, which is 12. But that's also improper. Haste states that "Until the spell ends, the target's speed is doubled, it gains a +2 bonus to AC, it has advantage on Dexterity saving throws, and it gains an additional action on each of its turns. That action can only be used to take the Attack (one weapon attack only), Dash, Disengage, Hide, or Use an Object action"(p. 250, PHB). Emphasis my own.
You may therefore only make 9 attacks; one from haste, four from multiattack, and four from action surge. I don't know what "potion misscalqubility" means, so I'll be ignoring it.
2. You use a hunting rifle, which fighters don't have proficiency with. You'd want the gunner feat, which you don't have.
3. You say hunting rifles deal 4d10 damage, which is incorrect. I'm assuming that you're acting as if all hits are crits? If so, I move to the discussion of poisons...
4. The following poisons are classified as injury poisons, and therefore may be applied to bullets at great expense: Drow Poison, Purple Worm Poison, Serpent Venom, and Wyvern Poison. Drow Poison is a DC 13 Con save and gives the poisoned condition on a fail, with an 8 or below also causing unconsciousness. It deals zero (0) damage. Purple Worm Poison is a DC 19 Con save and deals 42 (12d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Serpent Venom is a DC 11 Con save and deals 10.5 (3d6) damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. Wyvern Poison is a DC 15 Con save and deals 24.5 (7d6) poison damage on a failed save, or half as much on a success. If every save is failed--an unlikely event with such low DCs, legendary resistance, and the commonplace nature of Con save proficiency--then a total of 12d6+3d6+7d6=22d6 damage is applied.
Let's assume out of an abundance of kindness that the target fails the Drow Poison saving throw by 5 or more, falling unconscious. I presume that this is where you got auto-crits from, but that's absurd. Three things are relevant here. Creatures which fall unconscious fall prone, attacks against them have advantage, and attacks from attackers within five feet are critical hits. Your build uses a gun. Guns are ranged weapons. No critical hits are scored. No advantage is received either, because attacks against prone creatures from more than five feet away have disadvantage, which cancels.*
Thus, exactly zero (0) attacks are "auto crit[s]" as you so described.
5. The piercer feat allows you to reroll a single attack damage die every turn, which is a negligible effect. It also allows for additional crit damage, but we've established that you're not getting any auto crits, and I don't have the energy to calculate the chance of a critical hit to find your 'true' average damage. Suffice to say that piercer wouldn't add much.
6. An Arrow of Slaying is defined as a "Weapon (arrow), very rare." Bullets are not arrows. Guns do not shoot arrows, at least in Dungeons and Dragons. I'm stuck here, am I missing some new update to how guns work?
All that being said, let's recalculate your damage. It won't be perfect because you haven't provided key details such as your dexterity modifier (I'm assuming +5), and because I will assume that all attacks hit and none crit. I will also (very) generously assume that every single poison saving throw is failed.
Nine (9) attacks are made with a hunting rifle.
Each attack is 2d10 (rifle) +5 (dex modifier) + 22d6 (poisons) =11 + 5 + 77 = 93.
9*93= 837 average damage (roughly). While this is technically the highest damage on the thread, calling it as such would be a disingenuous statement. For this full damage to take effect, the target would need to fail 27 constitution saving throws in a row, including nine DC 11 saving throws (I'm disregarding Drow Poison saves because Drow Poison is useless here). No other legitimate build on this thread has made such an absurd and far-reaching assumption. If others did, then DxJxC would have the highest damage build, whose description can be found here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/dungeons-dragons-discussion/tips-tactics/52011-the-highest-possible-damaging-builds?comment=2 I believe their build would do 855 damage on average with just the addition of Purple Worm Poison, and a whole lot more if one added the other weaker poisons. Note also that your build requires an absurd amount of preparation rounds, which theirs does not.
*A note: Yes, you could theoretically be making all attacks from five feet of range to get critical hits, but then the math gets even more absurd. Firstly, from a practical standpoint, you might have difficulty getting into range safely and effectively with all of the needed prep rounds. Secondly, Drow Poison sucks. The target would need to roll an 8 every single attack (9 times), because Drow Poison specifies that "the creature wakes up if it takes damage, " so the status would need a reset. Excepting a few weird outlier (Halaster Blackcloak, for example), every CR 20+ creature has a constitution saving throw bonus of 7 or greater (and many have a high enough bonus to auto-succeed all or most of the poison saves), meaning that they'll never fall unconscious. Even a creature which has a low one will almost always succeed this save, and can use Legendary Resistance to negate any extremely unlucky rolls. The chance of that autocrit is essentially nil, hence why many of the good builds use Assassin's autocrit feature.
My apologies if I missed something or did some math wrong; this thread seems replete with error-laden posts, so mine would fit right in.
N/A
Carrion Crawler Mucus is a contact poison, not an injury poison, and so it can’t be used. As I said before, assuming all failed con saves is a huge and unrealistic allowance. Many builds on this thread would be substantially better than yours if they all did an extra 22d6 damage every hit and auto-critted without assassin. How do you have a plus 10 dex modifier? Do you mean potion miscibility? The effect on that table that “both potions work normally” doesn’t apply it they have the same effect. Or rather, it does but then you just get haste twice, and since spell effects of the same name don’t stack only one hast applies. Same would be true if you made the haste spell permanent with a roll of 100 then cast it on yourself. Two hastes isn’t an option. Overall, using poisons for these types of builds is a useless exercise. It’s not a meaningful added damage bonus in any real game (especially considering how common poison immunity is), and can also be generically applied to almost every martial build here for big numbers. There might be other issues with your revised version, but I don’t have time to look thoroughly through the post. Please excuse any typos.
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An interesting question.
From a RAI perspective, you clearly can't. Injury poison is applied to weapons, contact poison isn't. If that wasn't a distinction, then injury poisons wouldn't exist. All ammunition is an object, not all objects are ammunition. From a common sense perspective, the application might be allowed, but it won't work against an enemy with clothing or armor. If you shoot an arrow at a person and the poison only works when it touches exposed skin, then it'll move too quickly from the cloth/armor to a place lodged inside the flesh. Contact poison doesn't affect flesh, just skin. But I guess you could argue that, RAW, time has no meaning and the few milliseconds of contact with skin are enough.
From a RAW perspective, my interpretation is that it's still not effective. You could coat arrows with contact poison, but there's no RAW way of just aiming for skin, so we need to assume you're aiming for non-exposed skin. Whether it's covered by scales or clothes or armor or something else, it's not exposed. Thus, when the contact poison touches the skin as the arrow makes its way through the cloth/scales/armor towards the flesh, the skin isn't exposed and the poison doesn't work. The arrow can't draw a line of sight to the skin till it has already penetrated, at which point it's too late.
Thanks to Halfast and Cynophobia for the advisory role they played in this post.
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The game has no mechanic for targeting specific portions of one's body. I'm not saying that all attacks would be hitting armor/cloth, just that there's no way to say whether they are or aren't. Because you can't say for certain that it happens one way or the other, you have to assume that the more restrictive possibility applies. Otherwise, I could just say "every attack I make hits my enemy's eyes and they go blind." That's clearly not within the scope of the rules of the game, and neither is what you propose. If you want to play that way that's fine, but when you're playing RAF, this entire thread seems somewhat redundant.
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Great. So Carrion Crawler Mucus doesn't work, and the build doesn't produce crits.
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No. Read my posts again, I have pointed out several problems which you have failed to address and even more still exist, yet unmentioned. Then look at the linked DxJxC post above, and assume arrows of slaying+all poisons+all failed saves, and calculate that total damage. You'll find it results in quite a large number.
N/A
I think I have a contender. I used ChatGPT to help me summarize all the pieces because, to be honest, it's a LOT of mechanics to remember all at once. The character sheet in question is:
https://www.dndbeyond.com/sheet-pdfs/waringclandnd_163482214.pdf
TLDR: 20 attacks in a round, 4 are hits with a maul, 16 are from 4 casts of eldritch blast. If everything crit and was max damage, it tops out at 3,960 damage. The build requires you go first in initiative, but has a +9 to initiative and can use 1 charge from Lucky background feat to get advantage on that.
Eldritch Queen Nova Build
Fighter 2 / Valor Bard 6 / Hexblade Warlock 12
Bugbear | Pact of the Blade | Dragon’s Wrath Maul | Eldritch Blast CME Nova
This is a single-target nova build built around one principle:
In the nova turn, the build produces:
4 maul attacks
16 Eldritch Blast beams
20 total hit instances
The current sheet for this version shows Fighter 2 / Bard 6 / Warlock 12, CHA 30, Dragon’s Wrath Maul +20, and Eldritch Blast +17.
1) The Build
Species
Bugbear
The species feature that matters is:
That means this build strongly prefers going before the target.
Class split
Fighter 2 / Bard 6 / Warlock 12
Fighter 2
Fighter is here mainly for:
Action Surge
Fighting Style / Weapon Mastery support
The sheet confirms Action Surge on this build.
Bard 6 — College of Valor
Valor Bard supplies the cantrip replacement that makes the build cleaner from a RAW standpoint than the Eldritch Knight version.
The relevant text on the sheet is:
That is the feature that allows Eldritch Blast to be inserted into the Attack action.
Warlock 12 — Hexblade, Pact of the Blade
Warlock is the core of the engine.
The sheet shows the important pieces:
Agonizing Blast
Devouring Blade
Eldritch Smite
Lifedrinker
Pact of the Blade
Thirsting Blade
Hexblade’s Curse
The key interaction is this:
Warlock provides the 3-attack Attack action
This build’s Attack action starts with 3 pact-weapon attacks, not 2.
That comes from:
Thirsting Blade: attack twice with the pact weapon when taking the Attack action
Devouring Blade: Thirsting Blade grants two extra attacks rather than one
So when this character takes the Attack action, it begins as:
attack 1
attack 2
attack 3
Then Valor Bard replaces one of those with Eldritch Blast.
Result:
Ability scores and combat stats
The current bard version sheet shows:
CHA 30
PB +7
Initiative +9
HP 184
Dragon’s Wrath Maul +20
Eldritch Blast +17
Key feats / build pieces used
This version assumes the following offensive pieces are part of the build:
Great Weapon Master for +7 damage on qualifying maul hits
Spell Sniper to support close-range Eldritch Blast use in the prone setup
Metamagic Adept
specifically for Quickened Spell
used to cast Eldritch Blast as a Bonus Action during the nova turn
Key gear
The bard sheet shows the important items:
Dragon’s Wrath Maul (Ascendant), attuned
Blood Fury Tattoo, attuned
Ioun Stone of Mastery, attuned
Potion of Speed
Spellwrought Tattoo of Bestow Curse
five Tomes of Leadership and Influence in inventory
Important offensive contributions:
Dragon’s Wrath Maul adds +3d6 on each maul hit
Blood Fury Tattoo adds +4d6 on each of the 4 maul hits
Potion of Speed provides Haste
the Tomes support the CHA 30 setup shown on the sheet
2) Order of Events
Pre-round setup
This build assumes the nova begins with the main setup already active.
Before the nova turn
Bond the Dragon’s Wrath Maul as the pact weapon
Have Conjure Minor Elementals active at 9th level using the scroll
Use a Potion of Speed for Haste
Apply Hexblade’s Curse to the target
Be positioned so the target is:
inside the Conjure Minor Elementals emanation
within reach for maul attacks
close enough that the prone interaction can support close-range Eldritch Blast if needed
Important note
Because Hexblade’s Curse uses a Bonus Action, the cleanest version of this sequence assumes the nova turn starts with the curse already active.
Nova turn sequence
Action — Attack
The Attack action starts with 3 pact-weapon attacks from Warlock.
Valor Bard then replaces one attack with Eldritch Blast.
So the first action is:
Maul attack #1
Maul attack #2
Eldritch Blast = 4 beams
The first hit we apply the one-time weapon riders. We use a charge of Lucky to give advantage on this first hit, if for some reason it still doesn't hit, we have boon of combat prowess to make it hit. This them makes them Prone which means the rest of the hits within 5 feet have advantage, including my spells because of spell sniper removing the disadvantage:
Eldritch Smite
Lifedrinker
Action Surge — Attack
Repeat the same Attack action:
Maul attack #3
Maul attack #4
Eldritch Blast = 4 beams
Haste action — Attack
Under the interpretation used by this build, Haste grants an Attack action (one attack only), and that one attack is replaced with Eldritch Blast through Valor Bard.
So the Haste action becomes:
Eldritch Blast = 4 beams
Bonus Action
Use Quickened Spell from Metamagic Adept to cast:
Eldritch Blast = 4 beams
Total attacks in the nova round
That gives:
4 maul attacks
16 Eldritch Blast beams
20 total hit instances
3) Breakdown of the Numbers
A. Damage that applies to every hit
There are 20 hits, and each one gets:
+7d8 from Conjure Minor Elementals
+2d6 from Bugbear Surprise Attack
+7 flat from Hexblade’s Curse
Across 20 hits, that becomes:
140d8
40d6
+140
B. Eldritch Blast package
There are 16 beams, each dealing:
1d10 base
+10 from Agonizing Blast
So Eldritch Blast contributes:
16d10
+160
The sheet confirms Eldritch Blast 1d10+10.
C. Maul package
There are 4 maul hits, each dealing:
2d6 base maul
+3d6 from Dragon’s Wrath
+13 flat from weapon stat / magic bonus
+7 flat from Great Weapon Master
Across 4 hits, that becomes:
8d6
12d6
+52
+28
The sheet confirms Dragon’s Wrath Maul 2d6+13.
D. Weapon-only extra riders
These apply on the maul side:
Blood Fury Tattoo: +4d6 × 4 = 16d6
Eldritch Smite: +6d8 once
Lifedrinker: +1d6 once
Combined pre-crit line
d10s
16d10 from Eldritch Blast
d6s
40d6 Bugbear
8d6 maul base
12d6 Dragon’s Wrath
16d6 Blood Fury Tattoo
1d6 Lifedrinker
Total:
77d6
d8s
140d8 from CME
6d8 from Eldritch Smite
Total:
146d8
Flat damage
+140 Hexblade’s Curse
+160 Agonizing Blast
+52 maul stat / magic bonus
+28 Great Weapon Master
Total:
+380
Pre-crit line
16d10 + 77d6 + 146d8 + 380
4) Final Damage
Base all-hits-land average
Average values:
16d10 = 88
77d6 = 269.5
146d8 = 657
+380
Total average
1,394.5 damage
Expected damage with 4 crits out of 20 hits
For the strongest "normal" version of this scenario, place the 4 crits on the 4 maul hits. This is due to a 19% crit rating from a 19-20 range and advantage.
That adds extra crit dice of:
+8d6 maul base
+12d6 Dragon’s Wrath
+16d6 Blood Fury Tattoo
+8d6 Bugbear on those 4 critted maul hits
+28d8 CME on those 4 critted maul hits
+6d8 Eldritch Smite
+1d6 Lifedrinker
Extra crit dice total:
+45d6
+34d8
Add that to the base line:
16d10 + 122d6 + 180d8 + 380
Average values:
16d10 = 88
122d6 = 427
180d8 = 810
+380
Expected total
1,705 damage
Absolute max damage
If:
all 20 hits land
all 20 hits crit
every damage die rolls maximum
then all dice double.
All-crit max line
32d10 + 154d6 + 292d8 + 380
Maximum values:
32d10 = 320
154d6 = 924
292d8 = 2,336
+380
Absolute max total
3,960 damage
5) Appendix — Rules Justifications
This appendix gives the rules logic the build is using.
A. Valor Bard cantrip replacement
The bard sheet says:
This is the RAW basis for replacing one attack in the Attack action with Eldritch Blast.
B. Warlock provides the 3 attacks
The build’s Attack action starts with 3 pact-weapon attacks because of:
and
So the action starts as 3 attacks, then one is replaced by Eldritch Blast.
C. Eldritch Blast creates separate attack rolls
Rules text used for this build:
That means each beam is its own attack roll.
D. Conjure Minor Elementals applies to attack-roll hits
Rules text used for this build:
At 9th level, that becomes +7d8.
Because the wording is any attack you make, this build applies CME to:
maul hits
each Eldritch Blast beam
E. Bugbear Surprise Attack applies to qualifying hits
Rules text used for this build:
Because both the maul and each Eldritch Blast beam use attack rolls, the build applies Bugbear to all qualifying hits before the target acts.
F. Prone interaction
Rules text used for this build:
The build assumes:
the target is knocked Prone by Eldritch Smite
attacks are made from within 5 feet where needed
Spell Sniper supports the close-range Eldritch Blast setup
G. Haste interaction
Rules text used for this build:
This build interprets that as:
Haste still grants the Attack action
it simply limits it to one attack
Valor Bard can therefore replace that one attack with a cantrip
This is one of the key interpretation points in the build.
H. Quickened Spell source
The build’s bonus-action Eldritch Blast comes from:
Metamagic Adept
choosing Quickened Spell
using Quickened Spell to cast Eldritch Blast as a Bonus Action
That is the source of the fourth Eldritch Blast cast in the nova turn.
I. Hexblade’s Curse
The sheet shows:
That is the basis for:
+7 flat per hit
expanded crit range
I don't believe that the extra attack feature of a valor bard can be combined with thirsting blade -- you have to use one or the other -- though the rules are not entirely clear on that.
You have to choose between hexblade curse, quickened spell, and bugbear, because the first two start combat and thus you cannot have both and also get the bugbear bonus.