^ and you hit the nail on the head. The wizards need a lot of things to go right.
the terrain matters a lot
winning initiative.
and Paladins failing saves (easier said than done).
lot of things need to go right for the wizard.
paladin. Just needs to get the hits in and make it count. And that’s it.
edit- forcecage. Also way more likely for success than invulnerability.
I'm not sure when or how this turned PvP, but whilst a level 20 Paladin is fun, they aren't really the most overpowered single classed. For your example, what would the conquest Paladin do if they couldn't actually reach the Wizard to hit them? What about when they've blown their CD?
A 20th level Paladin will most likely spend their first turn triggering their capstone, putting them one round behind immediately. How will you put down a Wizard under the effects of Mirror Image, Blur etc. whilst being able to Shield and Misty Step away at will? If you take it to PvP, which you seem to be doing, then few straight 20s will really hit hard enough for the seriously overpowered benchmark.
Apologies, I missed that wombat originally said it, though you didn't actually address anything else in my post.
In regards to your views on Goodberries: There is no Healing Spell class of spells, Good Berry is a spell that can restore a tiny amount of health and thus qualifies as a spell for Disciple of life. That the berries last 24 hours has no bearing on the synergy. This is confirmed in Sage Advice compendium on Wizards site.
A ruling, equivalent to Homebrew, not a standard official rule. Which is why I said, your dm is either lenient in that setting. Or being taken advantage of.
and then... a further RAW vs RAI for goodberry in that scenario.
notice how every healing spell uses “regain” instead of goodberry using “restore”
Even when you uses potions it says “regain” vs restore.
its a RAW vs RAI thing. Sage advice wants it as a rule and not Homebrew. They’ll put out an errata for it.
edit2: does the edit expansion crap show? It doesn’t show for me and I wrote it 6 times trying...
If I’m a cleric/druid with the Disciple of Life feature, does the goodberry spell benefit from the feature?
Yes. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level spell slot.
Now I realize that's not straight up rules and is a ruling, but it is SAC as opposed to a tweet.
As for the 24 hour thing, I'm thinking that the majority of people using this are thinking 2 berries to each party member. As a first level spell, cure wounds 1d8 + spellcasting mod + level of spell + 2. Assuming a +3 spellcasting mod at 1, that would be 4.5+3+1+2=10.5. Healing word 1d4 + the 6 from the others = 8.5. Add 1 or 2 more for higher mods. You're not getting as much bang for your buck. As for the nourishment aspect, plenty of people eat more than they need to for their nourishment needs. Then there is the fact that you can cast Goodberry prior to taking a long rest and getting the spell slot back. Being able to pass the berries around out of combat so that a player may consume the berry when they feel it's the most opportune time (at the cost of an action, which could be an incredibly high cost during combat).
I'd highly doubt that would get an errata since that doesn't seem to be what they target for errata. SAC is likely the most that you can expect from something like that since it's not an interaction that can take place without feats or multiclassing. It's possible that they could tweak the language of the ability, but it seems like it's a little too close to the niche case to merit a full errata.
3. The goodberries last more than 24 hours but then lose the properties of their fulfillment from food nourishment. And the 1 hp they give.
any DM that has been allowing this. Has been extremely lenient, or is being taken advantage of.
1. It is a healing spell, it heals characters, thus is a healing spell.
2. It does restore hit points.
3. I don't see how this is relevant to what I was saying was an overpowered build. Doesn't change anything.
This is allowed RAW, and you just ranted about how you would allow it unless it messed up with other characters. I think this just increases the party's survivability a lot, and is totally fine if you want to be a Heal-Bot. I'd allow it, I'm not super lenient, and am not being taken advantage of. None of my players have done this yet, but I would allow it, as there is nothing wrong with it as the rules say.
As for the Sage Advice argument, I don't think that applies here, but I agree with their ruling. Sure, they may or may not be official rules for the game, but I tend to think that because they made the game, they may know a bit more than we do.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
3. The goodberries last more than 24 hours but then lose the properties of their fulfillment from food nourishment. And the 1 hp they give.
any DM that has been allowing this. Has been extremely lenient, or is being taken advantage of.
1. It is a healing spell, it heals characters, thus is a healing spell.
2. It does restore hit points.
3. I don't see how this is relevant to what I was saying was an overpowered build. Doesn't change anything.
This is allowed RAW, and you just ranted about how you would allow it unless it messed up with other characters. I think this just increases the party's survivability a lot, and is totally fine if you want to be a Heal-Bot. I'd allow it, I'm not super lenient, and am not being taken advantage of. None of my players have done this yet, but I would allow it, as there is nothing wrong with it as the rules say.
As for the Sage Advice argument, I don't think that applies here, but I agree with their ruling. Sure, they may or may not be official rules for the game, but I tend to think that because they made the game, they may know a bit more than we do.
I took this off topic to DMs.
but for any curious. Goodberries are an item. Life cleric thing applies to SPELLS. The spell goodberry provides no healing. Consuming the ITEM of a goodberry provides healing. RAW. That’s how it works.
and back to topic. Goodberries using that isn’t OP anyways.
It's literally in the SAC that it works. You can argue it wasn't originally RAI but it's literally stated to work and saying otherwise is just kinda silly? Like a child in an argument, holding their hands to their ears, shaking their head and chanting "nuh uh"
As to whether or not it's OP... It doesn't really scale well and it's not efficient in combat. Goodberry also already has other implications for survival and Healing Spirit already has more issues with invalidating healing so if someone wanted to spend their time multicasting or otherwise to do that, who really cares?
Use the unicorn spirit from circle of the shepherd, and when someone eats a berry, everyone regains HP equal to your level.
That's not how it works. The Unicorn spirit triggers when you cast a spell. It's different from the Life Cleric ability that is triggered when you use a spell.
First and foremost, there is almost nothing that can defeat a 20th level Chron Wizard. The best defensive spells, the boost to to init combined with the ability to auto-succeed and auto-fail others makes them near invulnerable. Paladin comes no where NEAR close enough. There are creatures/builds that the Wizard will not defeat, but no one will be beating the 20 Chrono Wizard.
But they are the masters of defense, not the supreme master of offense. Personally, I like the Sorlock (Sorceror with enough Warlock levels to quicken and twin an Eldritch Blast, ideally with repelling added on.
Sorceror with enough Warlock levels to quicken and twin an Eldritch Blast
For the record I don't believe you can twin an EB (past character level 5) as the errata states that the spell you twin must be incapable of hitting more than one creature.
what is your most overpowered build you know? would you allow it as a dungeon master?
At moderate levels:
The Sorcadin Nova build (Paladin/Sorcerer able to do a lot of damage in a single round) seemed most effective.
Next would be Moon Druid for flexibility, healing and controlling hordes of conjured animals. It's very overpowered if your DM allows you to conjure Pixies though.
Next is possibly Bear Totem Barbarian...very hard to take down.
The Coffeelock build (with virtually unlimited spells) seems tempting, but I don't see it unbalancing a fight really.
Also, the Lifeberry build (discussed above) doesn't seem very powerful unless you are running an HP constrained campaign/scenario (which is unusual). PC's usually have the resources to fully heal up between battles.
I think when discussing overpowered builds, it's worth dividing them between "overpowered builds where the DM can get wise and take away my toy" vs. "ironclad RAW builds." Overpowered toughness is typically also going to be less scrutinized than overpowered offensive capability, so there's that to think about too.
Moon Druid/Barbarian is so gosh darn tanky due to resistance + high Beast HP pools + easy Beast form self-healing + multiple Wild Shapes.... and a raging Beast will do decent melee damage. Moon Druids already are pretty much the stars of first-tier play, and adding in some Barbarian only heightens their strength. There's nothing in it remotely subject to interpretation, so once you get your leveling figured out to best balance class features, you're good to go.
Sorcadin spikes incredibly high damage by waiting to crit... but in actual table play, sometimes multiple sessions can go by without rolling one! The problem is, if you're always holding onto spell slots to fuel a crit smite, you aren't going to really ever be falling back on your normal damage curve, you're going to instead be under-performing by holding your slots unspent waiting for the crit that could be just around the bend. Also, if you do start to be crazy powerful... there's a lot of RP opportunities for an angry DM to start making some pretty extreme demands of a Paladin/Warlock, with the threat of losing your features from one or both of your classes if you displease your god/vows/patron.
The Crossbow Expert battlemaster with Sharpshooter can pump out a ton of attacks to exert a lot of battlefield control while doing insane damage from a safe distance, optionally mixing in some levels of rogue to bump up damage per round with SA even further. Problem is, while Crossbow Expert feat is mechanically very straightforward about permitting what it permits, I've never seen a DM not get a little piqued and toy with the idea of snapping crossbow strings on a critical miss once in a while or something to that effect. But ultimately, even after you break his crossbow (and his backup, and his backup backup...), there's not a lot stopping this character from pulling out a rapier and still being competent in battle, so it stands up to the grumpy DM pretty well.
Monks get a lot of criticism as underpowered, despite there being no particularly good evidence of that being the case IMHO. Indisputably, however, a regular old Long Death Monk is the tankiest build possible once you hit level 11. Once you burn through your monk HP (which can be anywhere from just ok to very very good, depending on how you've built), you can potentially tank 11 more killing blows without going unconscious, regardless of action economy, and regardless of how much damage they do. There is no other ability in 5E that is remotely similar to the ability to simply ignore a source of damage without an action for the cost of a single ki point, and you can use it to do some very stupid and heroic things (swim through a lake of lava? dunk your head into a vat of acid to go fishing for they key? etc etc). While DMs sometimes trot out exhaustion or other houserules to deal with "1 hp tanking" situations where the character lets himself constantly be knocked out so that the cleric can bring them back the next round with a single healing spell, Long Death's Master of Death feature doesn't let you slip to 0, so your DM may be less likely to saddle you with exhaustion or lasting injuries for tanking at 1 HP.
True Eldritch Blast optimization usually hinges on a lot of single-target theorizing assuming you're fully buffed, while ignoring the action economy limitations of letting enough rounds pass in combat for your Hexblade's curse, Hex, etc to be up and active on your chosen foe. However there's no denying that 1-4 1d10+[3-5] dmg attacks from massive range per round are going to be a major damage per round contender. If your DM actually allows Aarakocra player characters, a flying warlock slinging EB can be a very potent glass cannon, potentially able to snipe enemies from a range that they cannot escape or retaliate from. Just be mindful that your DM can and will counter you by simply.... moving encounters underground, indoors, into forests, into darkness.... lots of ways to make a 600-foot sniper build not all that it was cracked up to be on paper. Instead of optimizing for massive distance (or, in addition to optimizing for distance), I like to mix in some levels of Monk, especially Shadow monk. EB optimization doesn't actually require very many Warlock levels, just enough to grab Agonizing Blast and maybe one or two other EB enhancements, letting you play a slightly-MAD monk with only a few Warlock level splashes thats is deadly from distance, full of utility spells/features, and still a great melee combatants with high AC if an enemy manages to close with you.
I don't know, I'm slipping away from overpowered and into fun/niche... but really 5E is great at letting a lot of specialized builds be very good at what they do. Just don't get too caught up with building around something that your DM is going to find annoying and nerf, or which is going to slow down play and annoy your other players.
Circle of the Moon, Level 20 Wood Elf Druids. I would know, as I play one. They can use their Wild Shape at 6th level to turn into an elemental of their choice, from air, water, fire or earth. And when they hit 18th level, they can use their Wild Shape to turn into a Young White Dragon, or a Mammoth.
I think when discussing overpowered builds, it's worth dividing them between "overpowered builds where the DM can get wise and take away my toy" vs. "ironclad RAW builds." Overpowered toughness is typically also going to be less scrutinized than overpowered offensive capability, so there's that to think about too.
There's also the very important division between "overpowered build all the way from level 1 to level 20" versus the "it takes a long time to get this build to become powerful"
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
A ruling, equivalent to Homebrew, not a standard official rule. Which is why I said, your dm is either lenient in that setting. Or being taken advantage of.
and then... a further RAW vs RAI for goodberry in that scenario.
notice how every healing spell uses “regain” instead of goodberry using “restore”
Even when you uses potions it says “regain” vs restore.
its a RAW vs RAI thing. Sage advice wants it as a rule and not Homebrew. They’ll put out an errata for it.
edit2: does the edit expansion crap show? It doesn’t show for me and I wrote it 6 times trying...
Blank
From the Sage Advice Conpendium:
If I’m a cleric/druid with the Disciple of Life feature, does the goodberry spell benefit from the feature?
Yes. The Disciple of Life feature would make each berry restore 4 hit points, instead of 1, assuming you cast goodberry with a 1st-level spell slot.
Now I realize that's not straight up rules and is a ruling, but it is SAC as opposed to a tweet.
As for the 24 hour thing, I'm thinking that the majority of people using this are thinking 2 berries to each party member. As a first level spell, cure wounds 1d8 + spellcasting mod + level of spell + 2. Assuming a +3 spellcasting mod at 1, that would be 4.5+3+1+2=10.5. Healing word 1d4 + the 6 from the others = 8.5. Add 1 or 2 more for higher mods. You're not getting as much bang for your buck. As for the nourishment aspect, plenty of people eat more than they need to for their nourishment needs. Then there is the fact that you can cast Goodberry prior to taking a long rest and getting the spell slot back. Being able to pass the berries around out of combat so that a player may consume the berry when they feel it's the most opportune time (at the cost of an action, which could be an incredibly high cost during combat).
Agreed. It’s better than just being a tweet. And, it does seem more likely to get an errata. But as of yet it has not.
Blank
I'd highly doubt that would get an errata since that doesn't seem to be what they target for errata. SAC is likely the most that you can expect from something like that since it's not an interaction that can take place without feats or multiclassing. It's possible that they could tweak the language of the ability, but it seems like it's a little too close to the niche case to merit a full errata.
1. It is a healing spell, it heals characters, thus is a healing spell.
2. It does restore hit points.
3. I don't see how this is relevant to what I was saying was an overpowered build. Doesn't change anything.
This is allowed RAW, and you just ranted about how you would allow it unless it messed up with other characters. I think this just increases the party's survivability a lot, and is totally fine if you want to be a Heal-Bot. I'd allow it, I'm not super lenient, and am not being taken advantage of. None of my players have done this yet, but I would allow it, as there is nothing wrong with it as the rules say.
As for the Sage Advice argument, I don't think that applies here, but I agree with their ruling. Sure, they may or may not be official rules for the game, but I tend to think that because they made the game, they may know a bit more than we do.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
I took this off topic to DMs.
but for any curious. Goodberries are an item. Life cleric thing applies to SPELLS. The spell goodberry provides no healing. Consuming the ITEM of a goodberry provides healing. RAW. That’s how it works.
and back to topic. Goodberries using that isn’t OP anyways.
Blank
It's literally in the SAC that it works. You can argue it wasn't originally RAI but it's literally stated to work and saying otherwise is just kinda silly? Like a child in an argument, holding their hands to their ears, shaking their head and chanting "nuh uh"
As to whether or not it's OP... It doesn't really scale well and it's not efficient in combat. Goodberry also already has other implications for survival and Healing Spirit already has more issues with invalidating healing so if someone wanted to spend their time multicasting or otherwise to do that, who really cares?
Use the unicorn spirit from circle of the shepherd, and when someone eats a berry, everyone regains HP equal to your level.
When the DM smiles, it is already to late.
That's not how it works. The Unicorn spirit triggers when you cast a spell. It's different from the Life Cleric ability that is triggered when you use a spell.
Well, I misread. Sorry about that.
When the DM smiles, it is already to late.
First and foremost, there is almost nothing that can defeat a 20th level Chron Wizard. The best defensive spells, the boost to to init combined with the ability to auto-succeed and auto-fail others makes them near invulnerable. Paladin comes no where NEAR close enough. There are creatures/builds that the Wizard will not defeat, but no one will be beating the 20 Chrono Wizard.
But they are the masters of defense, not the supreme master of offense. Personally, I like the Sorlock (Sorceror with enough Warlock levels to quicken and twin an Eldritch Blast, ideally with repelling added on.
Most OP build? 1st level with a GM that thinks you should start out with two bonus feats and a magic item.
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.
Make that a legendary magic item, and you're set.
Please check out my homebrew, I would appreciate feedback:
Spells, Monsters, Subclasses, Races, Arcknight Class, Occultist Class, World, Enigmatic Esoterica forms
It was a custom item each that was power-wise the equivalent of a Very Rare since that GM was used to magic item power levels from 3rd Edition.
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.
For the record I don't believe you can twin an EB (past character level 5) as the errata states that the spell you twin must be incapable of hitting more than one creature.
At moderate levels:
The Coffeelock build (with virtually unlimited spells) seems tempting, but I don't see it unbalancing a fight really.
Also, the Lifeberry build (discussed above) doesn't seem very powerful unless you are running an HP constrained campaign/scenario (which is unusual). PC's usually have the resources to fully heal up between battles.
Moon Druids are OP simply due to having effectively unlimited HP at 20th level.
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.
I think when discussing overpowered builds, it's worth dividing them between "overpowered builds where the DM can get wise and take away my toy" vs. "ironclad RAW builds." Overpowered toughness is typically also going to be less scrutinized than overpowered offensive capability, so there's that to think about too.
Moon Druid/Barbarian is so gosh darn tanky due to resistance + high Beast HP pools + easy Beast form self-healing + multiple Wild Shapes.... and a raging Beast will do decent melee damage. Moon Druids already are pretty much the stars of first-tier play, and adding in some Barbarian only heightens their strength. There's nothing in it remotely subject to interpretation, so once you get your leveling figured out to best balance class features, you're good to go.
Sorcadin spikes incredibly high damage by waiting to crit... but in actual table play, sometimes multiple sessions can go by without rolling one! The problem is, if you're always holding onto spell slots to fuel a crit smite, you aren't going to really ever be falling back on your normal damage curve, you're going to instead be under-performing by holding your slots unspent waiting for the crit that could be just around the bend. Also, if you do start to be crazy powerful... there's a lot of RP opportunities for an angry DM to start making some pretty extreme demands of a Paladin/Warlock, with the threat of losing your features from one or both of your classes if you displease your god/vows/patron.
The Crossbow Expert battlemaster with Sharpshooter can pump out a ton of attacks to exert a lot of battlefield control while doing insane damage from a safe distance, optionally mixing in some levels of rogue to bump up damage per round with SA even further. Problem is, while Crossbow Expert feat is mechanically very straightforward about permitting what it permits, I've never seen a DM not get a little piqued and toy with the idea of snapping crossbow strings on a critical miss once in a while or something to that effect. But ultimately, even after you break his crossbow (and his backup, and his backup backup...), there's not a lot stopping this character from pulling out a rapier and still being competent in battle, so it stands up to the grumpy DM pretty well.
Monks get a lot of criticism as underpowered, despite there being no particularly good evidence of that being the case IMHO. Indisputably, however, a regular old Long Death Monk is the tankiest build possible once you hit level 11. Once you burn through your monk HP (which can be anywhere from just ok to very very good, depending on how you've built), you can potentially tank 11 more killing blows without going unconscious, regardless of action economy, and regardless of how much damage they do. There is no other ability in 5E that is remotely similar to the ability to simply ignore a source of damage without an action for the cost of a single ki point, and you can use it to do some very stupid and heroic things (swim through a lake of lava? dunk your head into a vat of acid to go fishing for they key? etc etc). While DMs sometimes trot out exhaustion or other houserules to deal with "1 hp tanking" situations where the character lets himself constantly be knocked out so that the cleric can bring them back the next round with a single healing spell, Long Death's Master of Death feature doesn't let you slip to 0, so your DM may be less likely to saddle you with exhaustion or lasting injuries for tanking at 1 HP.
True Eldritch Blast optimization usually hinges on a lot of single-target theorizing assuming you're fully buffed, while ignoring the action economy limitations of letting enough rounds pass in combat for your Hexblade's curse, Hex, etc to be up and active on your chosen foe. However there's no denying that 1-4 1d10+[3-5] dmg attacks from massive range per round are going to be a major damage per round contender. If your DM actually allows Aarakocra player characters, a flying warlock slinging EB can be a very potent glass cannon, potentially able to snipe enemies from a range that they cannot escape or retaliate from. Just be mindful that your DM can and will counter you by simply.... moving encounters underground, indoors, into forests, into darkness.... lots of ways to make a 600-foot sniper build not all that it was cracked up to be on paper. Instead of optimizing for massive distance (or, in addition to optimizing for distance), I like to mix in some levels of Monk, especially Shadow monk. EB optimization doesn't actually require very many Warlock levels, just enough to grab Agonizing Blast and maybe one or two other EB enhancements, letting you play a slightly-MAD monk with only a few Warlock level splashes thats is deadly from distance, full of utility spells/features, and still a great melee combatants with high AC if an enemy manages to close with you.
I don't know, I'm slipping away from overpowered and into fun/niche... but really 5E is great at letting a lot of specialized builds be very good at what they do. Just don't get too caught up with building around something that your DM is going to find annoying and nerf, or which is going to slow down play and annoy your other players.
dndbeyond.com forum tags
I'm going to make this way harder than it needs to be.
Circle of the Moon, Level 20 Wood Elf Druids. I would know, as I play one. They can use their Wild Shape at 6th level to turn into an elemental of their choice, from air, water, fire or earth. And when they hit 18th level, they can use their Wild Shape to turn into a Young White Dragon, or a Mammoth.
Legend of Zelda is the best
There's also the very important division between "overpowered build all the way from level 1 to level 20" versus the "it takes a long time to get this build to become powerful"