Hi. I'm a dragonborn fighter/eldritch - Currently I'm at 18 str, 8 dex, 13 con, 16 int, 12 wis, 7 cha. I just hit level 4. We have a bard with one healing spell and a sorcerer who is a loose cannon. No rogue. No healer. (Other players bailed due to life.) This campaign is designed for 5 players.
I'm torn. I could put both ability scores into str and max at 20. OR, I could take Durable to increase CON, hit pts, and hit regen (since we don't have a healer). I thought about heavy armor mastery, but it won't help against magic of any sort. Which could still leave me vulnerable to death. Anything that increases attack & damage is cool, but it won't help if I'm dead. Thoughts?
Well hopefully the bard will switch out a bit and pick up some more healing. At this point, heavy armor master is really pretty good, it’s not as useful in higher tiers, but at low levels, the damage mitigation can be a lifesaver. Two hits, and you’ve already saved yourself more damage then the bonus you’ll get from the con bump from durable.
And this doesn’t help in the short term, but you should really recruit some new players. I know that’s easier said than done, but long term that’s probably best. Or talk to your DM about re-tooling the campaign around the current party. When I DM I feel like it’s part of my job to make sure I challenge the party, and part of that includes accounting for the characters in it. For example in your case, throwing out more healing potions.
The most important healing spell is healing word. Rests and potions can do everything else. Take knock (you or the bard) and you stop needing a rogue too (at least for thief's tools, the bard should be able to do other rogue stuff).
If being short on players is a problem, make multiple characters or use sidekicks.
Killing things before they kill/damage you is an excellent damage mitigation technique. The game mechanics "assume" a 20 in your primary attack statistic by level 12. The 18 in strength makes it ahead of the curve, so a feat is doable, just as putting both points into Con or one point into Con and one into Cha for reasons... Being ahead of the curve means you will hit 5% more of the time, and do 8% more damage on average.
Since you have a Bard in the party, make sure that you do frequent short rests to take advantage of his Song of Rest ability. That means more Action Surge for you ;)
Right now put your Strength to 20. Heavy Armor Master isn't that useful of a feat once you get to higher levels and enemies are hitting for a lot of damage - a 3 point decrease won't make a big difference when you're getting hit for 15-20 points of damage.
At level 6, you'll want to consider Great Weapon Master, the Polearm Master + Sentinel combo (which you could get at level 8), or even Warcaster if you're a Sword and Board Eldritch Knight. In fact, if you've taken Booming Blade and Shield, you might even consider taking Warcaster at level 4.
Having a healer isn't that important. You're not supposed to heal through the damage in D&D 5e, the classes with healing just don't have the spell slots to be doing that.
As a fighter you'll get more ASIs than other classes, so you're right that you would be a good choice to take a healing-related feat. May I suggest the Healer feat? For the low low cost of one use of a healer's kit you can heal a party member 1d6+4+their level (currently 9-14HP) once per person every short rest. Also, when they are on death saves you can not only stabilize them but get the up to 1HP, and that works as much as you want as long as you don't run out of healer's kits.
I also suggest using your next two feats to bump CON, then STR.
Play and build your character the way you want to play him. Discuss it with the DM and see if he sees the lack of healing as a problem. He can take steps to alleviate it if he thinks it is a problem. IE(Potions as bonus actions instead of action and increase in heal potion availability). He can literally do anything he wants if he sees it as an issue unless he is a hardass DM vs Player type.
I've played many campaigns and DM'd many campaigns without a healer, the ultimate power is in the DM's hand and players shouldn't have to compromise their character concept by taking unwanted feats or class levels because of a lack of healing in the party unless they want to.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Hi. I'm a dragonborn fighter/eldritch - Currently I'm at 18 str, 8 dex, 13 con, 16 int, 12 wis, 7 cha. I just hit level 4. We have a bard with one healing spell and a sorcerer who is a loose cannon. No rogue. No healer. (Other players bailed due to life.) This campaign is designed for 5 players.
I'm torn. I could put both ability scores into str and max at 20. OR, I could take Durable to increase CON, hit pts, and hit regen (since we don't have a healer). I thought about heavy armor mastery, but it won't help against magic of any sort. Which could still leave me vulnerable to death. Anything that increases attack & damage is cool, but it won't help if I'm dead. Thoughts?
Well hopefully the bard will switch out a bit and pick up some more healing.
At this point, heavy armor master is really pretty good, it’s not as useful in higher tiers, but at low levels, the damage mitigation can be a lifesaver. Two hits, and you’ve already saved yourself more damage then the bonus you’ll get from the con bump from durable.
And this doesn’t help in the short term, but you should really recruit some new players. I know that’s easier said than done, but long term that’s probably best. Or talk to your DM about re-tooling the campaign around the current party. When I DM I feel like it’s part of my job to make sure I challenge the party, and part of that includes accounting for the characters in it. For example in your case, throwing out more healing potions.
The most important healing spell is healing word. Rests and potions can do everything else. Take knock (you or the bard) and you stop needing a rogue too (at least for thief's tools, the bard should be able to do other rogue stuff).
If being short on players is a problem, make multiple characters or use sidekicks.
Killing things before they kill/damage you is an excellent damage mitigation technique. The game mechanics "assume" a 20 in your primary attack statistic by level 12. The 18 in strength makes it ahead of the curve, so a feat is doable, just as putting both points into Con or one point into Con and one into Cha for reasons... Being ahead of the curve means you will hit 5% more of the time, and do 8% more damage on average.
Thanks everybody. I'm going to put one in str and one in con and hope for the best. Appreciate all of the feedback!
Since you have a Bard in the party, make sure that you do frequent short rests to take advantage of his Song of Rest ability. That means more Action Surge for you ;)
Right now put your Strength to 20. Heavy Armor Master isn't that useful of a feat once you get to higher levels and enemies are hitting for a lot of damage - a 3 point decrease won't make a big difference when you're getting hit for 15-20 points of damage.
At level 6, you'll want to consider Great Weapon Master, the Polearm Master + Sentinel combo (which you could get at level 8), or even Warcaster if you're a Sword and Board Eldritch Knight. In fact, if you've taken Booming Blade and Shield, you might even consider taking Warcaster at level 4.
Having a healer isn't that important. You're not supposed to heal through the damage in D&D 5e, the classes with healing just don't have the spell slots to be doing that.
As a fighter you'll get more ASIs than other classes, so you're right that you would be a good choice to take a healing-related feat. May I suggest the Healer feat? For the low low cost of one use of a healer's kit you can heal a party member 1d6+4+their level (currently 9-14HP) once per person every short rest. Also, when they are on death saves you can not only stabilize them but get the up to 1HP, and that works as much as you want as long as you don't run out of healer's kits.
I also suggest using your next two feats to bump CON, then STR.
Play and build your character the way you want to play him. Discuss it with the DM and see if he sees the lack of healing as a problem. He can take steps to alleviate it if he thinks it is a problem. IE(Potions as bonus actions instead of action and increase in heal potion availability). He can literally do anything he wants if he sees it as an issue unless he is a hardass DM vs Player type.
I've played many campaigns and DM'd many campaigns without a healer, the ultimate power is in the DM's hand and players shouldn't have to compromise their character concept by taking unwanted feats or class levels because of a lack of healing in the party unless they want to.