How to Cross Blades with an Equal—A General Guide to Player vs. Player D&D
(The other possible title for this was "How to Take Out Your Anger on Those Less Lucky Than You")
Let me first start by saying this:
D&D is notmeant for Player vs. Player scenarios. It is not balanced as such, and thus there will be many/much disputes, homebrew rulings, tears shed, blood spilled, frustration, rulings that are disagreed with by some but made for the sake of balance, etc. Each and every PvP campaign will differ greatly in how it's executed, especially in a format like PbP.
However—
That isn't to say that D&D PvP isn't fun, enjoyable, or functional—it just requires more work on the DM's part than in a normal campaign, and more work on the player's to keep the spirit of the game fair (i.e. no fudging of roles or similar).
This guide will cover, eventually, quite a few topics. I'll first go over some basic tips, and talk a bit about what most (at least in my experience) PvP campaigns will look like. I'll be mostly talking about PvP over PbP, as that's where my experience lies. I'll then go over what could possible be considered the "meta," although this term is used very loosely, and there are very very few builds that won't be good if you go about things reasonably (i.e. not trying to multiclass into all the classes, or playing a fighter with 10 Str and 11 Dex). This will not be a complete "meta" in any since, as (like I said) nearly anything is viable and/or strong in its own right (and everything is subject to opinion). I'll finally go over what the main differences between PvE and PvP are for what is useful—for example, a Ranger's Natural Explorer will be almost completely useless in most PvP campaigns. I'll also post some links to a very long PvP campaign I was/still am in if you want to look through it at your own leisure for more inspiration.
Before I get started on the guide proper, I feel I should take a little longer and define what I mean by a PvP campaign. By this I don't mean a normal campaign where the PCs are at odds with each other and that might sometimes degenerate into combat—I mean an organized, arena style campaign where it is mostly focused around teams or single players fighting each other, although some PvE might be included occasionally (or a map hazard or something). The reason I bring these out in particular is because they differ the most from normal campaigns, as they often have a more organized system for getting gear, XP and other such things. For example, most matches of this sort will reward your character with a magical item (random or sometimes even your choice), whereas you can go for quite a while in a normal campaign without getting one.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
What I mean by structure is how most PvP campaigns are run. Now, obviously there is a wide variety of campaigns and everything will be slightly different depending on the DM, but there are a few things that mostly stay the same. Note that in this guide I will almost exclusively be talking about arena style PvP, not campaigns that involve PvP but aren't focused on it.
1. XP tiers. Either you win a certain number of matches or just complete a certain number, then you level up. Most campaigns, however, will have different starting levels—I've seen 1, 3, 5 and even 13.
2. Magic item and mundane gear rewards. There will be a much more consistent supply of common equipment and magical items than any other type of campaign. Most campaigns will reward 1 magical item at the end of each match, rarity depending on PC level and DM. Therefore, you are much more able build around magical items than you would normally (for instance, having a wizard with 8 intelligence because the campaign rules allow you to start with a Headband of Intellect).
3. Maps. Almost every arena style campaign will have a map or rotation of maps they go through specifically designed for this. There will usually be some form of cover around the starting area, and often some form of hazard, difficult terrain, etc. To be good in these formats, you'll have to learn how to read them. Some maps will be text maps, which due to DDB's formatting often turn out a little odd (especially on mobile). Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about that—you just have to get used to it.
To demonstrate what I mean by all these points, I'm going to use a long-running PvP PbP campaign I myself am a part of called the Coliseum of Conquest. This thread (looking at it now) in fact currently holds the most views out of any play-by-play thread, even though the main one is now retired. How the Coliseum is structured (now, at least—it's changed) is thus:
PCs start at level 3. You get 1 uncommon magical item and whatever mundane equipment you want to start (besides things like purple worm poison, obviously). Matches are fought in two teams on text based maps (usually around 16 by 16 if I remember correctly), and often have map hazards like capture points or enemy spawns to keep the matches from dragging on for too long (which sometimes happens anyways). Every PC starts with 1 potion of healing, and if yours is used it will be replaced at the end of the match. The winners of each match get enough XP to level up to the next level, and get a randomly rolled chest of magical items (quality dependent on level). You can also trade two items of the same quality in for an item of the same quality of your choice. Losers get around 1/2-1/3 the XP required to level up, and either just money or a token that counts as a magic item for the purpose of trade-ins depending on level (and whether they leveled up from the loss or not). The XP gain is also structured so that if you lose one match, win one match, then lose another match you level up twice.
Obviously this is only one example of a myriad of forms these arenas can take, but the Coliseum is a very refined, standardized form that could be considered a typical arena in many ways.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
In this section I'll go over some general tips for PvP arenas. I'll have more specific build advice and similar in the next post.
I will start this off with one thing, and this is the most important thing to keep in mind. Although character build and efficiency and group strategy are very important, most times it will strictly come down to one thing—luck. If you invest all your time and energy into one game and pour everything into winning, there's a very good chance you could be "cheated" out of your win by a poor (or good) dice roll. This is just something you have to accept—it's the nature of D&D, and most of the reason I say D&D is not meant to be a PvP game.
The next thing to keep in mind in that (obviously) you'll be fighting other PCs. Why is this important? Because they will almost always be the same level as you, and thus around the same power level in general. You can't go in swinging and just expect everything to go fine, because it will most likely not.
Metagaming. It might be frowned on in some arenas, but you can bet people still do it (even just unconsciously). I'm not going to say you should do it or you shouldn't do it—just keep in mind that people most likely will be doing it to you. And if they know you're playing a character in heavy armor, they're going to pick heat metal and ruin your day. If they know ahead of time the opposing team will most likely have lowish health pools and no elves/half-elves, they're going to use sleep. Both of these spells, in fact, are spells that are made even better in PvP situations than normal (and they're already quite good). They'll also use it to figure out how many hit points you have left—it'll usually be fairly obvious what your Con mod is, and it's fairly easy to go from there. This makes it easier to figure out targeting for spells like sleep again, or how many darts of magic missile go to each target. Beware of these.
High AC is king, most of the time. It doesn't matter how many hit points you have if you're getting hit every turn—you'll run out eventually (well, some exceptions for barbarians obviously, but their hit points kind of are their armor). The only exception being, again, heat metal, magic missile and the like. For this reason, it's often a good idea to invest in either the shield spell if you're in a position to multiclass into a caster (as a heavily armored melee fighter especially), or to get a Brooch of Shielding. Conversely, it's also very important to invest in skills that don't require attack rolls, or in abilities/spells that increase your chance of hitting high AC opponents—i.e. a Devotion paladin's Sacred Weapon, advantage from numerous sources, bless or a Potion of Heroism, or even just a normal +1/2/3 magic weapon. Saving throw spells are also good against most heavily armored characters (especially Dex saves in most cases), with the exception of paladins at higher levels. If the opposing team has a high leveled paladin, they're getting at least a +1 bonus to all saving throws, and it's usually more around +3.
This should be a fairly obvious tip, but spells like charm person or divination spells aren't going to help you much. Stay away from situational spells and abilities. You don't have to only focus on damage spells, many debuffs and buffs are arguably better. Just don't get spells you can't conceivably use in a battle.
Be very, very, very wary of classes capable of outputting huge damage very quickly. You get in a melee fight with a paladin as a somewhat squishy, and if they hit you you might just straight up die. If memory serves correctly, I've oneshot a raging level 3 barbarian with a paladin before—burst damage doesn't mess around. Other examples of this are rogues, some warlock builds (looking at you, Hexblades with Eldritch Smite), and many spellcasters. Never put yourself in melee with someone who's better at it than you if you can help it.
Don't let archers and spellcasters play their game. They'll want to hang back and be passive most likely—don't let them if at all possible. It might even be worth burning a spell slot/ability for misty step to close faster, as long as you know you aren't going in alone. If you let an archer just hang back and pepper you even as a high AC fighter, you're going to have a bad time. Chances are they've got Archery, and many archer builds have easy access to advantage and other similar boosts. Similar for spellcasters—don't let them set up the field to their liking, you're just going to get obliterated. I feel I should add a slight qualifier to this advice—don't rush in headlong without thinking first. If you're going to have someone else with you, or ranged support, you're probably fine. But, you don't need to get to the archer/mage badly enough to charge headlong into a web or something.
This is slightly more specific, but it's never a bad idea to take Adamantine armor. You get crit by a rogue or paladin under the right circumstances and not even Divine Intervention can save you. This is especially true for those who rely on AC for survivability—if your opponent gets lucky once, you need to have a back-up plan, especially if you lose concentration because of it.
It is generally—generally, not always—a better idea to wait to heal allies until they're unconscious. This is the most efficient way of healing, as if you heal someone at 1 hit point they can easily go down anyways and you've essentially wasted a spell slot. If you heal them while they're at 0, they'll probably get at least one turn. This obviously doesn't apply to self heals like a Fighter's Second Wind or similar abilities.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
The sad truth is—not all classes are created equal. At base value, at least. This is especially true in PvP where the more situational, social abilities will do pretty much nothing for you. Examples that come to mind are a Ranger's Natural Explorer (most of the time, at least), a Bard's Song of Rest, and similar abilities. This isn't to say these classes are bad, it's just something to keep in mind.
Some classes I would highly recommend playing in PvP are paladins, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks and druids. This is just a general listing, don't read too deeply into it.
Paladins have amazing burst damage, great defenses (especially if multiclassed), great synergy with other classes for multiclassing in general, and some very good spells and other abilities. What exactly do I mean by great defenses? With (granted, you will probably never have all these items—this is just hypothetical) a +3 shield, +3 plate, a cloak of protection, a ring of protection, haste (from someone else), shield of faith (from someone else or yourself), the Defense fighting style, shield, and maybe even blur, mirror image, blink or darkness (if you're a warlock or shadow sorcerer) your base AC will be 27 without any buff spells. With SoF, shield, mirror image, haste and blur/darkness—36, and they have disadvantage. As I said, this is implausible, but less extreme examples are no less useful. You'll also have up to a +5 bonus to all saving throws.
Sorcerers have a great array of spells for PvP, and metamagic is amazing in situations where you won't be penalized for burning all your resources quickly. They have many amazing defensive spells as well (shield, mirror image etc.), and classics such as polymorph, greater invisibility and fireball.
Wizards can feel downright unfair sometimes, especially Abjuration wizards, War Mages and Bladesingers. Abjuration wizards have a hefty amount of temporary hit points, war mages have a always repeatable +2 to AC or +5 to any saving throw (besides many other great abilities), and Bladesingers have the highest AC potential of any of the wizard subclasses (easily a base AC of 20 at level 2 with a headband of intellect without even taking shield into account). Some arenas will also let you cast mage armor before the battle, then take a short rest and use Arcane Recovery to get the slot back. Besides all of this, the wizard spell list is the largest and most varied in the entire game (besides, of course, bards with Magical Secrets).
Warlocks are very good because of Invocations, and very promising multiclassing builds. There are ridiculous amounts of useful invocations to have, whether that be adding your Charisma mod to your eldritch blasts (which, by the way, is arguably the best damage cantrip in the game—and only you have it on your base spell list), having permanent mage armor, having permanent false life, BEING ABLE TO SEE THROUGH MAGICAL DARKNESS—this one is enormous, level 3 warlocks are true terrors—the list goes on and on, and these are all level 2 invocations. You also have Hexblade, which is one of the strongest one level multiclasses for spellblade builds, mostly since you can use Charisma for your attack rolls. Not only does this mean you don't have to put points into Strength (Dexterity is a slightly different animal, especially if you're not using heavy armor), you also can activate Elven Accuracy on two-handed weapon attacks—which you can do almost constantly if you have devil's sight and darkness on you! I cannot overstate just how powerful Devil's Sight is.
Druids are flat out ridiculous in two ways, depending on your arena rules. You can go full on summoner mode and blanket the arena with swarms of woodland creatures (if this is allowed), or you can go Circle of the Moon and . . .uh, have around 87 effective hit points at level 3. That's more than a raging barbarian, especially considering theirs are based around resistances for the most part. As a level 3 Circle of the Moon druid, you can transform into bear twice. As a bonus action. This gives you an effective hit point pool of 34 each time you change, as well as having a higher attack bonus at level 3 than anyone not using a magical item to boost theirs (and archers, but we don't talk about them). Not only that, they get Extra Attack (effectively) two levels early, and can heal using a spell slot as a bonus action. Granted their AC will lower substantially, but this isn't even talking about the other things they could possibly change in to—AND, this is only at level 3.
In terms of general multiclassing, you can almost never go wrong with two things (depending on what archetype of build you're going for). It is almost never a bad idea to multiclass in Fighter or start with one level of Fighter (even as a spellcaster), as you get a bonus action heal and a Fighting Style. This is especially nice if you're playing something like a Ranger where you took the Archery style, but also want to take Defense. Fighter is the only class that gives a Fighting Style at level 1, all the rest are at level 2 or later. And, if you start as a fighter, you'll get proficiency in all weapons and armor. The second tried-and-true option is a 1-3 level dip into Warlock, specifically Hexblade. This isn't necessary for weapon based characters that aren't elves (most of the time) or non Charisma based spellcasters, but for pretty much everything else it's great. If you just dip for two levels, you get medium armor, shield and martial weapon proficiency. You also get access to Eldritch Invocations and the spell eldritch blast (which most consider to be the best damage cantrip). For invocations, you're probably best with Devil's Sight (quite possibly the most broken invocation when paired with any spellcaster that has darkness), and then either Agonizing Blast (higher eldritch blast damage), Armor of Shadows if you're wearing light armor (permanent mage armor at no cost), or Fiendish Vigor (free false life). These are by no means the only options, but are generally the ones I'd recommend. But the real draw of Hexblade is one particular thing—you can use Charisma instead of another ability for weapon attacks. This is huge for charisma based melee spellcasters who don't want to invest in so many ability scores, but truly massive for any Strength based build that's an elf. Why? Because with this ability you can trigger Elven Accuracy even with weapons that wouldn't normally allow it (i.e. greatswords and the like, since it has to be a Dex/Cha/Int/Wis roll for Elven Accuracy). This is truly absurd combined with something like Devil's Sight, you basically get permanent triple advantage.
In other general multiclassing tips (and this is pretty obvious), generally try to multiclass to classes that rely on the same ability score your main class does. It's easier to get away with it when you're playing a full spellcaster and multiclass to a spellcaster that uses a different ability score, since you won't be using as many scores—but you should basically at all costs stay away from it on a Monk, Paladin or Ranger especially. Monks, Paladins and Rangers all effectively rely on 3 ability scores each (Constitution for each since they're usually melee builds, although that's less necessary for Rangers), and so adding another one on top of that can be difficult to manage.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
This post has potentially manipulated dice roll results.
Recommended Spells and Feats
I'll go over some spells and feats here that are generally very strong in PvP arenas (or sometimes just in general).
1. Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master. These are especially deadly at lower levels, since you'll have more attacks (and thus a better chance to hit period) per turn than most other characters. Polearm Master's reach entering opportunity attack and Crossbow Expert's ignoring of melee ranged attack disadvantage are also both very nice.
2. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. Both these feats do very similar things, though I'd rate Sharpshooter a little higher since it synergizes well with the Archery fighting style. Essentially, you sacrifice +5 on your attack roll for +10 damage. As a level 4 archer in most arenas you can easily have a +8 attack bonus, and thus still have a +3 on your attack. Both of these are especially good with anything that improves your chance to hit and counteract the penalty—anything that gives advantage, magic weapons, and a Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon all come to mind. Sharpshooter's ignoring of cover and GWM's bonuses when critting and downing opponents are also very beneficial, GWM's especially. Combine that GWM bonus with a Hexblade using Devil's Sight darkness and Elven Accuracy, and you've got constant triple advantage and you crit on 19s. For purposes of demonstration, a normal attack with a Hexblade 4/Fighter 4 using a longbow and the archery fighting style (and Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter): Attack: 14(20)(14) Damage: 19
I'll put a post somewhere in the thread demonstrating a turn with a level 20 Hexblade/Devotion paladin who crits once at the beginning of their turn.
3. Heat metal. The enemy of Paladins and Clerics everywhere. Watch them run in fear.
4. Polymorph. Just a great spell in general, but the massive amount of hit points you get is amazing.
5. War Caster. Advantage on concentration and you can use booming blade as an AoO if you want.
6. Dwarven Fortitude. Yeah, this feat is hilarious. You have no other use for hit dice so you don't need to worry about burning them.
7. Darkness. As long as you are either a Shadow Sorcerer or a Warlock with Devil's Sight. Permanent advantage for you, permanent disadvantage for them. Really the only counters to it are other warlocks and barbarians to a certain extent, since they can spam reckless attack and get no penalty for it since you'd already have advantage.
8. Not a spell so much as an item—wand of magic missiles. Especially at lower levels, this has massive burst damage. If your target isn't a spellcaster and doesn't have a brooch of shielding, they're probably dead.
9. Some other items that fulfill similar purposes—headband of intellect, gauntlets of ogre power, any belts of giant strength. You can almost dump stats on purpose since you can get them back up with a magic item and an attunement slot. Especially good if you plan on taking feats instead of ASIs.
10. Summoning spells, if they're allowed. Watch a horde of coins mow down your enemies and laugh.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
The biggest difference between the two is one simple thing—resource management. In a normal campaign, you don't know when your next long rest will be. In almost every arena style PvP campaign, there's a long rest after each match. You can get away with spamming your spell slots and other limited use abilities a lot more, especially things like Bardic Inspiration. That being said, this also means that class features allowing for regeneration of abilities on short rests are generally worse in PvP, with the exception of Arcane and Natural Recovery in some situations. Classes that rely heavily on resource heavy burst damage like Paladins also have a better time, since they don't have to worry about using spell slots too early. Obviously you'll still have some issues at lower levels as a paladin since you're not a full caster, but full casters will already have six spell slots to burn at level 3.
There are some other smaller differences, but most of those are more obvious and simpler. For example, features like a ranger's Favored Enemy or abilities that only trigger on the first turn of combat (i.e. Dread Ambusher, Assassinate) are way worse in PvP.
Finally, prep time. You can strategize ahead of the match and have time to cast buff spells beforehand, which is a huge difference. Bless is especially good, and mirror image since you don't have to waste a turn on them.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Here are some threads (well, one thread and its offshoots) you can check out to observe how arena PvP can work. This is the Coliseum of Conquest and its offshoots, all of which run or ran under relatively the same ruleset.
The original coliseum has 906 pages of pvp content, so if you're ever bored and just want to read through it—go ahead. The final match and I think one other match never finished, but the rest did and feature various combinations of classes and builds in various numbers. I don't think there's a single class that hasn't been played (other than UA).
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Well, I had a little less to say than I expected. I hope this was a good intro to arena PvP, and inspires you to go out and try it, whether you're a PC or a DM.
Looks like I'll be making a Ranger guide next . . .
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Feel free to post any questions you might have at any time. If you have any suggested running campaigns or other threads to share, just post them here and I'll put them in the threads to check out post.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
If you want examples of very powerful builds, check the Wizard 20 vs. X threads. They include a lot of extremely powerful characters albeit for level 20.
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A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
If you want examples of very powerful builds, check the Wizard 20 vs. X threads. They include a lot of extremely powerful characters albeit for level 20.
If you have a link to this, please post it and I'll include it in the "threads to look at" post.
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
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How to Cross Blades with an Equal—A General Guide to Player vs. Player D&D
(The other possible title for this was "How to Take Out Your Anger on Those Less Lucky Than You")
Let me first start by saying this:
D&D is not meant for Player vs. Player scenarios. It is not balanced as such, and thus there will be many/much disputes, homebrew rulings, tears shed, blood spilled, frustration, rulings that are disagreed with by some but made for the sake of balance, etc. Each and every PvP campaign will differ greatly in how it's executed, especially in a format like PbP.
However—
That isn't to say that D&D PvP isn't fun, enjoyable, or functional—it just requires more work on the DM's part than in a normal campaign, and more work on the player's to keep the spirit of the game fair (i.e. no fudging of roles or similar).
This guide will cover, eventually, quite a few topics. I'll first go over some basic tips, and talk a bit about what most (at least in my experience) PvP campaigns will look like. I'll be mostly talking about PvP over PbP, as that's where my experience lies. I'll then go over what could possible be considered the "meta," although this term is used very loosely, and there are very very few builds that won't be good if you go about things reasonably (i.e. not trying to multiclass into all the classes, or playing a fighter with 10 Str and 11 Dex). This will not be a complete "meta" in any since, as (like I said) nearly anything is viable and/or strong in its own right (and everything is subject to opinion). I'll finally go over what the main differences between PvE and PvP are for what is useful—for example, a Ranger's Natural Explorer will be almost completely useless in most PvP campaigns. I'll also post some links to a very long PvP campaign I was/still am in if you want to look through it at your own leisure for more inspiration.
Before I get started on the guide proper, I feel I should take a little longer and define what I mean by a PvP campaign. By this I don't mean a normal campaign where the PCs are at odds with each other and that might sometimes degenerate into combat—I mean an organized, arena style campaign where it is mostly focused around teams or single players fighting each other, although some PvE might be included occasionally (or a map hazard or something). The reason I bring these out in particular is because they differ the most from normal campaigns, as they often have a more organized system for getting gear, XP and other such things. For example, most matches of this sort will reward your character with a magical item (random or sometimes even your choice), whereas you can go for quite a while in a normal campaign without getting one.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Structure
What I mean by structure is how most PvP campaigns are run. Now, obviously there is a wide variety of campaigns and everything will be slightly different depending on the DM, but there are a few things that mostly stay the same. Note that in this guide I will almost exclusively be talking about arena style PvP, not campaigns that involve PvP but aren't focused on it.
1. XP tiers. Either you win a certain number of matches or just complete a certain number, then you level up. Most campaigns, however, will have different starting levels—I've seen 1, 3, 5 and even 13.
2. Magic item and mundane gear rewards. There will be a much more consistent supply of common equipment and magical items than any other type of campaign. Most campaigns will reward 1 magical item at the end of each match, rarity depending on PC level and DM. Therefore, you are much more able build around magical items than you would normally (for instance, having a wizard with 8 intelligence because the campaign rules allow you to start with a Headband of Intellect).
3. Maps. Almost every arena style campaign will have a map or rotation of maps they go through specifically designed for this. There will usually be some form of cover around the starting area, and often some form of hazard, difficult terrain, etc. To be good in these formats, you'll have to learn how to read them. Some maps will be text maps, which due to DDB's formatting often turn out a little odd (especially on mobile). Unfortunately, there's not much you can do about that—you just have to get used to it.
To demonstrate what I mean by all these points, I'm going to use a long-running PvP PbP campaign I myself am a part of called the Coliseum of Conquest. This thread (looking at it now) in fact currently holds the most views out of any play-by-play thread, even though the main one is now retired. How the Coliseum is structured (now, at least—it's changed) is thus:
PCs start at level 3. You get 1 uncommon magical item and whatever mundane equipment you want to start (besides things like purple worm poison, obviously). Matches are fought in two teams on text based maps (usually around 16 by 16 if I remember correctly), and often have map hazards like capture points or enemy spawns to keep the matches from dragging on for too long (which sometimes happens anyways). Every PC starts with 1 potion of healing, and if yours is used it will be replaced at the end of the match. The winners of each match get enough XP to level up to the next level, and get a randomly rolled chest of magical items (quality dependent on level). You can also trade two items of the same quality in for an item of the same quality of your choice. Losers get around 1/2-1/3 the XP required to level up, and either just money or a token that counts as a magic item for the purpose of trade-ins depending on level (and whether they leveled up from the loss or not). The XP gain is also structured so that if you lose one match, win one match, then lose another match you level up twice.
Obviously this is only one example of a myriad of forms these arenas can take, but the Coliseum is a very refined, standardized form that could be considered a typical arena in many ways.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
General Strategies and Tips
In this section I'll go over some general tips for PvP arenas. I'll have more specific build advice and similar in the next post.
I will start this off with one thing, and this is the most important thing to keep in mind. Although character build and efficiency and group strategy are very important, most times it will strictly come down to one thing—luck. If you invest all your time and energy into one game and pour everything into winning, there's a very good chance you could be "cheated" out of your win by a poor (or good) dice roll. This is just something you have to accept—it's the nature of D&D, and most of the reason I say D&D is not meant to be a PvP game.
The next thing to keep in mind in that (obviously) you'll be fighting other PCs. Why is this important? Because they will almost always be the same level as you, and thus around the same power level in general. You can't go in swinging and just expect everything to go fine, because it will most likely not.
Metagaming. It might be frowned on in some arenas, but you can bet people still do it (even just unconsciously). I'm not going to say you should do it or you shouldn't do it—just keep in mind that people most likely will be doing it to you. And if they know you're playing a character in heavy armor, they're going to pick heat metal and ruin your day. If they know ahead of time the opposing team will most likely have lowish health pools and no elves/half-elves, they're going to use sleep. Both of these spells, in fact, are spells that are made even better in PvP situations than normal (and they're already quite good). They'll also use it to figure out how many hit points you have left—it'll usually be fairly obvious what your Con mod is, and it's fairly easy to go from there. This makes it easier to figure out targeting for spells like sleep again, or how many darts of magic missile go to each target. Beware of these.
High AC is king, most of the time. It doesn't matter how many hit points you have if you're getting hit every turn—you'll run out eventually (well, some exceptions for barbarians obviously, but their hit points kind of are their armor). The only exception being, again, heat metal, magic missile and the like. For this reason, it's often a good idea to invest in either the shield spell if you're in a position to multiclass into a caster (as a heavily armored melee fighter especially), or to get a Brooch of Shielding. Conversely, it's also very important to invest in skills that don't require attack rolls, or in abilities/spells that increase your chance of hitting high AC opponents—i.e. a Devotion paladin's Sacred Weapon, advantage from numerous sources, bless or a Potion of Heroism, or even just a normal +1/2/3 magic weapon. Saving throw spells are also good against most heavily armored characters (especially Dex saves in most cases), with the exception of paladins at higher levels. If the opposing team has a high leveled paladin, they're getting at least a +1 bonus to all saving throws, and it's usually more around +3.
This should be a fairly obvious tip, but spells like charm person or divination spells aren't going to help you much. Stay away from situational spells and abilities. You don't have to only focus on damage spells, many debuffs and buffs are arguably better. Just don't get spells you can't conceivably use in a battle.
Be very, very, very wary of classes capable of outputting huge damage very quickly. You get in a melee fight with a paladin as a somewhat squishy, and if they hit you you might just straight up die. If memory serves correctly, I've oneshot a raging level 3 barbarian with a paladin before—burst damage doesn't mess around. Other examples of this are rogues, some warlock builds (looking at you, Hexblades with Eldritch Smite), and many spellcasters. Never put yourself in melee with someone who's better at it than you if you can help it.
Don't let archers and spellcasters play their game. They'll want to hang back and be passive most likely—don't let them if at all possible. It might even be worth burning a spell slot/ability for misty step to close faster, as long as you know you aren't going in alone. If you let an archer just hang back and pepper you even as a high AC fighter, you're going to have a bad time. Chances are they've got Archery, and many archer builds have easy access to advantage and other similar boosts. Similar for spellcasters—don't let them set up the field to their liking, you're just going to get obliterated. I feel I should add a slight qualifier to this advice—don't rush in headlong without thinking first. If you're going to have someone else with you, or ranged support, you're probably fine. But, you don't need to get to the archer/mage badly enough to charge headlong into a web or something.
This is slightly more specific, but it's never a bad idea to take Adamantine armor. You get crit by a rogue or paladin under the right circumstances and not even Divine Intervention can save you. This is especially true for those who rely on AC for survivability—if your opponent gets lucky once, you need to have a back-up plan, especially if you lose concentration because of it.
It is generally—generally, not always—a better idea to wait to heal allies until they're unconscious. This is the most efficient way of healing, as if you heal someone at 1 hit point they can easily go down anyways and you've essentially wasted a spell slot. If you heal them while they're at 0, they'll probably get at least one turn. This obviously doesn't apply to self heals like a Fighter's Second Wind or similar abilities.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Good PvP Classes/Multiclasses
The sad truth is—not all classes are created equal. At base value, at least. This is especially true in PvP where the more situational, social abilities will do pretty much nothing for you. Examples that come to mind are a Ranger's Natural Explorer (most of the time, at least), a Bard's Song of Rest, and similar abilities. This isn't to say these classes are bad, it's just something to keep in mind.
Some classes I would highly recommend playing in PvP are paladins, sorcerers, wizards, warlocks and druids. This is just a general listing, don't read too deeply into it.
Paladins have amazing burst damage, great defenses (especially if multiclassed), great synergy with other classes for multiclassing in general, and some very good spells and other abilities. What exactly do I mean by great defenses? With (granted, you will probably never have all these items—this is just hypothetical) a +3 shield, +3 plate, a cloak of protection, a ring of protection, haste (from someone else), shield of faith (from someone else or yourself), the Defense fighting style, shield, and maybe even blur, mirror image, blink or darkness (if you're a warlock or shadow sorcerer) your base AC will be 27 without any buff spells. With SoF, shield, mirror image, haste and blur/darkness—36, and they have disadvantage. As I said, this is implausible, but less extreme examples are no less useful. You'll also have up to a +5 bonus to all saving throws.
Sorcerers have a great array of spells for PvP, and metamagic is amazing in situations where you won't be penalized for burning all your resources quickly. They have many amazing defensive spells as well (shield, mirror image etc.), and classics such as polymorph, greater invisibility and fireball.
Wizards can feel downright unfair sometimes, especially Abjuration wizards, War Mages and Bladesingers. Abjuration wizards have a hefty amount of temporary hit points, war mages have a always repeatable +2 to AC or +5 to any saving throw (besides many other great abilities), and Bladesingers have the highest AC potential of any of the wizard subclasses (easily a base AC of 20 at level 2 with a headband of intellect without even taking shield into account). Some arenas will also let you cast mage armor before the battle, then take a short rest and use Arcane Recovery to get the slot back. Besides all of this, the wizard spell list is the largest and most varied in the entire game (besides, of course, bards with Magical Secrets).
Warlocks are very good because of Invocations, and very promising multiclassing builds. There are ridiculous amounts of useful invocations to have, whether that be adding your Charisma mod to your eldritch blasts (which, by the way, is arguably the best damage cantrip in the game—and only you have it on your base spell list), having permanent mage armor, having permanent false life, BEING ABLE TO SEE THROUGH MAGICAL DARKNESS—this one is enormous, level 3 warlocks are true terrors—the list goes on and on, and these are all level 2 invocations. You also have Hexblade, which is one of the strongest one level multiclasses for spellblade builds, mostly since you can use Charisma for your attack rolls. Not only does this mean you don't have to put points into Strength (Dexterity is a slightly different animal, especially if you're not using heavy armor), you also can activate Elven Accuracy on two-handed weapon attacks—which you can do almost constantly if you have devil's sight and darkness on you! I cannot overstate just how powerful Devil's Sight is.
Druids are flat out ridiculous in two ways, depending on your arena rules. You can go full on summoner mode and blanket the arena with swarms of woodland creatures (if this is allowed), or you can go Circle of the Moon and . . .uh, have around 87 effective hit points at level 3. That's more than a raging barbarian, especially considering theirs are based around resistances for the most part. As a level 3 Circle of the Moon druid, you can transform into bear twice. As a bonus action. This gives you an effective hit point pool of 34 each time you change, as well as having a higher attack bonus at level 3 than anyone not using a magical item to boost theirs (and archers, but we don't talk about them). Not only that, they get Extra Attack (effectively) two levels early, and can heal using a spell slot as a bonus action. Granted their AC will lower substantially, but this isn't even talking about the other things they could possibly change in to—AND, this is only at level 3.
In terms of general multiclassing, you can almost never go wrong with two things (depending on what archetype of build you're going for). It is almost never a bad idea to multiclass in Fighter or start with one level of Fighter (even as a spellcaster), as you get a bonus action heal and a Fighting Style. This is especially nice if you're playing something like a Ranger where you took the Archery style, but also want to take Defense. Fighter is the only class that gives a Fighting Style at level 1, all the rest are at level 2 or later. And, if you start as a fighter, you'll get proficiency in all weapons and armor. The second tried-and-true option is a 1-3 level dip into Warlock, specifically Hexblade. This isn't necessary for weapon based characters that aren't elves (most of the time) or non Charisma based spellcasters, but for pretty much everything else it's great. If you just dip for two levels, you get medium armor, shield and martial weapon proficiency. You also get access to Eldritch Invocations and the spell eldritch blast (which most consider to be the best damage cantrip). For invocations, you're probably best with Devil's Sight (quite possibly the most broken invocation when paired with any spellcaster that has darkness), and then either Agonizing Blast (higher eldritch blast damage), Armor of Shadows if you're wearing light armor (permanent mage armor at no cost), or Fiendish Vigor (free false life). These are by no means the only options, but are generally the ones I'd recommend. But the real draw of Hexblade is one particular thing—you can use Charisma instead of another ability for weapon attacks. This is huge for charisma based melee spellcasters who don't want to invest in so many ability scores, but truly massive for any Strength based build that's an elf. Why? Because with this ability you can trigger Elven Accuracy even with weapons that wouldn't normally allow it (i.e. greatswords and the like, since it has to be a Dex/Cha/Int/Wis roll for Elven Accuracy). This is truly absurd combined with something like Devil's Sight, you basically get permanent triple advantage.
In other general multiclassing tips (and this is pretty obvious), generally try to multiclass to classes that rely on the same ability score your main class does. It's easier to get away with it when you're playing a full spellcaster and multiclass to a spellcaster that uses a different ability score, since you won't be using as many scores—but you should basically at all costs stay away from it on a Monk, Paladin or Ranger especially. Monks, Paladins and Rangers all effectively rely on 3 ability scores each (Constitution for each since they're usually melee builds, although that's less necessary for Rangers), and so adding another one on top of that can be difficult to manage.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Recommended Spells and Feats
I'll go over some spells and feats here that are generally very strong in PvP arenas (or sometimes just in general).
1. Crossbow Expert and Polearm Master. These are especially deadly at lower levels, since you'll have more attacks (and thus a better chance to hit period) per turn than most other characters. Polearm Master's reach entering opportunity attack and Crossbow Expert's ignoring of melee ranged attack disadvantage are also both very nice.
2. Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter. Both these feats do very similar things, though I'd rate Sharpshooter a little higher since it synergizes well with the Archery fighting style. Essentially, you sacrifice +5 on your attack roll for +10 damage. As a level 4 archer in most arenas you can easily have a +8 attack bonus, and thus still have a +3 on your attack. Both of these are especially good with anything that improves your chance to hit and counteract the penalty—anything that gives advantage, magic weapons, and a Devotion Paladin's Sacred Weapon all come to mind. Sharpshooter's ignoring of cover and GWM's bonuses when critting and downing opponents are also very beneficial, GWM's especially. Combine that GWM bonus with a Hexblade using Devil's Sight darkness and Elven Accuracy, and you've got constant triple advantage and you crit on 19s. For purposes of demonstration, a normal attack with a Hexblade 4/Fighter 4 using a longbow and the archery fighting style (and Elven Accuracy and Sharpshooter): Attack: 14(20)(14) Damage: 19
I'll put a post somewhere in the thread demonstrating a turn with a level 20 Hexblade/Devotion paladin who crits once at the beginning of their turn.
3. Heat metal. The enemy of Paladins and Clerics everywhere. Watch them run in fear.
4. Polymorph. Just a great spell in general, but the massive amount of hit points you get is amazing.
5. War Caster. Advantage on concentration and you can use booming blade as an AoO if you want.
6. Dwarven Fortitude. Yeah, this feat is hilarious. You have no other use for hit dice so you don't need to worry about burning them.
7. Darkness. As long as you are either a Shadow Sorcerer or a Warlock with Devil's Sight. Permanent advantage for you, permanent disadvantage for them. Really the only counters to it are other warlocks and barbarians to a certain extent, since they can spam reckless attack and get no penalty for it since you'd already have advantage.
8. Not a spell so much as an item—wand of magic missiles. Especially at lower levels, this has massive burst damage. If your target isn't a spellcaster and doesn't have a brooch of shielding, they're probably dead.
9. Some other items that fulfill similar purposes—headband of intellect, gauntlets of ogre power, any belts of giant strength. You can almost dump stats on purpose since you can get them back up with a magic item and an attunement slot. Especially good if you plan on taking feats instead of ASIs.
10. Summoning spells, if they're allowed. Watch a horde of coins mow down your enemies and laugh.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Differences Between PvE and PvP
The biggest difference between the two is one simple thing—resource management. In a normal campaign, you don't know when your next long rest will be. In almost every arena style PvP campaign, there's a long rest after each match. You can get away with spamming your spell slots and other limited use abilities a lot more, especially things like Bardic Inspiration. That being said, this also means that class features allowing for regeneration of abilities on short rests are generally worse in PvP, with the exception of Arcane and Natural Recovery in some situations. Classes that rely heavily on resource heavy burst damage like Paladins also have a better time, since they don't have to worry about using spell slots too early. Obviously you'll still have some issues at lower levels as a paladin since you're not a full caster, but full casters will already have six spell slots to burn at level 3.
There are some other smaller differences, but most of those are more obvious and simpler. For example, features like a ranger's Favored Enemy or abilities that only trigger on the first turn of combat (i.e. Dread Ambusher, Assassinate) are way worse in PvP.
Finally, prep time. You can strategize ahead of the match and have time to cast buff spells beforehand, which is a huge difference. Bless is especially good, and mirror image since you don't have to waste a turn on them.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Threads
Here are some threads (well, one thread and its offshoots) you can check out to observe how arena PvP can work. This is the Coliseum of Conquest and its offshoots, all of which run or ran under relatively the same ruleset.
The original coliseum: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/9701-coliseum-of-conquest-no-longer-recruiting
The overflow coliseum: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/30739-coliseum-of-conquest-underground
Four semi current/active threads: https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/71506-the-rubble-of-the-coliseum-coliseum-of-conquest
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/71630-echoes-of-glory-coliseum-of-conquest
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/74085-fighting-grounds-of-the-coliseum-coliseum-of
https://www.dndbeyond.com/forums/d-d-beyond-general/play-by-post/62389-coliseum-revived
The original coliseum has 906 pages of pvp content, so if you're ever bored and just want to read through it—go ahead. The final match and I think one other match never finished, but the rest did and feature various combinations of classes and builds in various numbers. I don't think there's a single class that hasn't been played (other than UA).
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Well, I had a little less to say than I expected. I hope this was a good intro to arena PvP, and inspires you to go out and try it, whether you're a PC or a DM.
Looks like I'll be making a Ranger guide next . . .
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Feel free to post any questions you might have at any time. If you have any suggested running campaigns or other threads to share, just post them here and I'll put them in the threads to check out post.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
This is pretty cool. Sounds good.
Edit: how would you do a league of legends style one? Not necessarily 5v5, but that idea.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
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If you want examples of very powerful builds, check the Wizard 20 vs. X threads. They include a lot of extremely powerful characters albeit for level 20.
A fool pulls the leaves. A brute chops the trunk. A sage digs the roots.
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Yes. I've seen enough of that. This seems better, and frankly more entertaining.
'The Cleverness of mushrooms always surprises me!' - Ivern Bramblefoot.
I'll worldbuild for your DnD games!
Just a D&D enjoyer, check out my fiverr page if you need any worldbuilding done for ya!
I wouldn't. The concept of minions in D&D to me amounts to an enormous quantity of NPCs for the DM to manage.
Maybe a LoL inspired campaign, with two teams that compete for PvE bounties or something?
Feel I should put a disclaimer that I'm also the wrong person to ask, I don't play League.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
If you have a link to this, please post it and I'll include it in the "threads to look at" post.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
I would, of course the game would have to be made significantly less complex by eliminating creeps, shops, multiple paths, jungles, and progress.
In fact I've already started. The first match I'm running in The Rubble of the Coliseum is Defense of the Ancient Constructs (DOTAC). Link
In reality I decided on this match format before I drew a connection to League but the broad concept is definately similar.
LST, where was this guide years ago when I really needed it?
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I . . .completely didn’t realize that’s what you were going for. I assumed they were just the normal two big bands who try to speed things up.
And as for timing, most of my experience is from CoC, so—bit of a chicken and the egg thing there.
And yes, simpler would be the main way to go. I wasn’t thinking about LoL in terms of just tower defense.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
Do you think an 8 Cha bard will work?
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Depends on what the bard would be doing. Buff spells don't need a spellcasting ability.
Besides, I know you're a sneaky bastard.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)
The only exception being, again, [Tooltip Not Found]
There is no dawn after eternal night.
Homebrew: Magic items, Subclasses
Fixed. Thanks for pointing that out.
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Class Guides: Barbarian, Rogue, Sorcerer, Bard General Guides: PvP
Currently playing in: Quest for the Shunned City, Coliseum of Conquest, DragonDenn's Dragonlords, Shipwrecked on Fugue, Tomb of Annihilation, Razor's Lost Mine of Phandelver, The Lost Kenku & One Grung Above
Currently DMing: Princes of the Apocalypse, Out of the Abyss, Coliseum of Conquest—The Arena (Sometimes)