A level 1 life cleric with strixhaven initiate in either quandrix or witherbloom (baxkground or variant human, doesn’t matter much) and get goodberry.
It’s been confirmed by sage advice that disciple of life affect EACH berry. So 40 hit points per casting.
Strixhaven initiate allows 1 free casting plus casting with your 2 slots.
And that’s 120 healing per long rest. Or more than 2 full heals for an entire typical 5-person party. And anything you don’t use remains for 1 more day, so you start a quest with enough goodberries to full heal a level 20 barbarian. All as a level 1.
I don't think that is the most OP. The best healer sure, but you allude to the problem in your answer, first level characters don't have enough hit points to actually use all that healing and at first level hit point management is not as important as avoiding hits..
2 hits from a goblin are usually going to take a first level cleric to zero, no matter how many goodberries are in his pocket.
I know. There are many types of op. Different situations cause different things to be good. I haven’t seen many healers here. It’s probably not as op as the dps builds, but it’s unique in this thread.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
Custom Lineage Hexblade Warlock. I know that's been said here before, but this particular build combines not only hexblade's high damage but also makes for an insane control option. How? Take the Mobile feat - it does some okay things, but the main one is "When you make a melee attack against a creature, you don't provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of the turn, whether you hit or not". Then, take the Booming Blade cantrip from Tasha's. Why is this overpowered? You run up to a creature, hit it with Booming Blade (all your hexblade juiciness still applies, because the spell specifies that normal effects still occur) then slip away without provoking an opportunity attack. If the creature wants to do anything, it has to take that Booming Blade damage. Obviously this wouldn't work against things focusing on ranged attacks, but it's INSANE for melee monsters, whether they choose to move or not.
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Will everyone stop calling him "The Demogorgon"? It's his name, not a title!
It also does a fairly reliable amount of damage - assuming your target has hexblade's curse and hex and you're using a longsword, 14 (1d10+1d6+5) per round, plus that control. On a crit, which you have a high enough chance of, that's 23 (2d10+2d6+5) or 19 (2d10+1d6+5) depending on DM rules.
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Will everyone stop calling him "The Demogorgon"? It's his name, not a title!
I've changed my answer to a Vuman Peace Cleric with the Healer feat and spells Healing Word and Bless and Guidance.
Grab a few healer kits and the best armor you can afford, and you're everyone's best friend. You're adding to people's saves. You're adding to people's attacks. You're adding to people's skill checks. You're healing them all, all day long, and you're doing it without magic. Why is this the most OP L1 build? Because it makes your whole party OP, whether they tried to or not.
They need to attack? Emboldening Bond combo'd with Bless is +2d4 hit bonus to 2 party members, and +1d4 to a 3rd. They need to save? Same as above ^ 2d4 to 2 ally, 1d4 saves to a 3rd. Skills? Emboldening Bond + Guidance is +2d4 to skill checks. Need HP? You can auto 1HP to any fallen ally as an action. -or- 1d6+4+[1], avg 8.5 hp healed as an action. No spells needed. Once per ally per short rest.
Like, seriously, if you have ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or a similar high octane campaign that demands a lot from the low level party in a short time-frame, you know how quickly a party of L1 characters runs out of steam because they cannot keep everyone's HP topped up and with this character in the group you're going to be a full HP power-team of nonstop questing all day and night long.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I've changed my answer to a Vuman Peace Cleric with the Healer feat and spells Healing Word and Bless and Guidance.
Grab a few healer kits and the best armor you can afford, and you're everyone's best friend. You're adding to people's saves. You're adding to people's attacks. You're adding to people's skill checks. You're healing them all, all day long, and you're doing it without magic. Why is this the most OP L1 build? Because it makes your whole party OP, whether they tried to or not.
They need to attack? Emboldening Bond combo'd with Bless is +2d4 hit bonus to 2 party members, and +1d4 to a 3rd. They need to save? Same as above ^ 2d4 to 2 ally, 1d4 saves to a 3rd. Skills? Emboldening Bond + Guidance is +2d4 to skill checks. Need HP? You can auto 1HP to any fallen ally as an action. -or- 1d6+4+[1], avg 8.5 hp healed as an action. No spells needed. Once per ally per short rest.
Like, seriously, if you have ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or a similar high octane campaign that demands a lot from the low level party in a short time-frame, you know how quickly a party of L1 characters runs out of steam because they cannot keep everyone's HP topped up and with this character in the group you're going to be a full HP power-team of nonstop questing all day and night long.
The problem with this is the set up time and the corresponding action economy on the enemy. Basically your cleric is not getting in the fight and worse is not healing anyone until round 3. Giving 3 players +1d4 is not really worth an entire action at 1st level.
Try this on with a 4-person party and a ruthless DM on the first goblin encounter of LMOP or the lizard man encounter in the Wildemont sourcebook and you will probably get wasted.
A 1st level party needs to do down enemies as fast as possible to survive and if you are not downing enemies you need to be bringing your allies back. Throwing a shield of faith on the Barbarian and charging into combat with your mace is probably going to take you further since you have now both buffed an ally and made an attack in your first turn.
At 2nd and 3rd level the math changes on this quite a bit as party members will survive more hits.
I've changed my answer to a Vuman Peace Cleric with the Healer feat and spells Healing Word and Bless and Guidance.
Grab a few healer kits and the best armor you can afford, and you're everyone's best friend. You're adding to people's saves. You're adding to people's attacks. You're adding to people's skill checks. You're healing them all, all day long, and you're doing it without magic. Why is this the most OP L1 build? Because it makes your whole party OP, whether they tried to or not.
They need to attack? Emboldening Bond combo'd with Bless is +2d4 hit bonus to 2 party members, and +1d4 to a 3rd. They need to save? Same as above ^ 2d4 to 2 ally, 1d4 saves to a 3rd. Skills? Emboldening Bond + Guidance is +2d4 to skill checks. Need HP? You can auto 1HP to any fallen ally as an action. -or- 1d6+4+[1], avg 8.5 hp healed as an action. No spells needed. Once per ally per short rest.
Like, seriously, if you have ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or a similar high octane campaign that demands a lot from the low level party in a short time-frame, you know how quickly a party of L1 characters runs out of steam because they cannot keep everyone's HP topped up and with this character in the group you're going to be a full HP power-team of nonstop questing all day and night long.
The problem with this is the set up time and the corresponding action economy on the enemy. Basically your cleric is not getting in the fight and worse is not healing anyone until round 3. Giving 3 players +1d4 is not really worth an entire action at 1st level.
Try this on with a 4-person party and a ruthless DM on the first goblin encounter of LMOP or the lizard man encounter in the Wildemont sourcebook and you will probably get wasted.
A 1st level party needs to do down enemies as fast as possible to survive and if you are not downing enemies you need to be bringing your allies back. Throwing a shield of faith on the Barbarian and charging into combat with your mace is probably going to take you further since you have now both buffed an ally and made an attack in your first turn.
At 2nd and 3rd level the math changes on this quite a bit as party members will survive more hits.
1. This doesn't look like you're posting an OP L1 build to me.
2. What I posted is extremely flexible and has lasting power. The Emboldening Bond lasts 10 minutes and can easily be applied before a fight, or last for more than one fight. At no point did I say "No matter the circumstance spend your first two turns buffing your allies regardless of the situation". This character is supposed to be a variant Human, not a strawman.
3.a The goal is never to be healing during a fight whenever possible. But, this build can do so fairly well despite that, as it does it without using a spell slot. Remember, L1 characters have 2 slots. Being able to heal every party member roughly 8.5HP once per short rest without spending a slot is unparalleled. There isn't a more powerful healing option at L1. Think there is? Name it.
3.b. Even if you kept your Healer feat healing to out of combat, just for the giggles, even that adds unprecedented staying power to a L1 team, as you can immediately patch your whole team up after the fight without spending spells on it. The Healer feat is OP.
4.a. Adding hit chance to allies, as well as saving bonuses in the process, has a far larger benefit than you likely realize. Goblins have an AC of 15, and a typical L1 character's hit bonus is +5. You'd need to roll a 10 or higher to hit. That's 55% hit chance. Adding just a d4 is another 2.5 on average, bringing your hit chance up to 77.5%. An increase in damage of 23%. To 3 of your allies. That is +69%. The ROI on Bless is 1.4 rounds. Combat will... even at L1, last 1.4 rounds.
4.b. If you did have Emboldening Bond already active and managed to toss a Bless up, we can also look at what that +2d4 is doing. That's an average of +5. Bring the hit chance all the way up to 80% for two of those three characters. That's a 45% increase to them in average damage output over baseline. Your totals is now at +45%, +45%, +23% damage to those allies. That's +113%, more than a whole person.
4.c. (Added in edit) If one of your allies uses something like GWM the math ratchets into overdrive. They'll need a roll of 15+ to hit, 30% hit rate. You boost that to 42.5% with a single d4 effect, and to 55% with both. This represents a +42% and a +83% damage increase for this character, and, funnily enough this character is doing far more damage than you were going to. Now, should they use that GWM against goblins? Specifically... goblins? No. Goblins have 7hp. 2d6+13 or whatever is overkill. But being able to bring a 2d6+13 damage attack all the way from 30% hitrate to 55% hitrate against a higher hp/cr target at this level would be game changing. Ie OP for L1.
4.d. No you won't need it, probably, for a fight vs the goblins but the whole time you've added more % damage than you could have ever done yourself, you're simultaneously protecting them with save bonuses as well.
5. Say two of your L1 allies get dropped to 0HP in the Goblin ambush. This character can run to one, Healer feat heal them either just to 1 hp or burn the 1d6+5 HP heal on them, and then Bonus Action healing word the 2nd ally, bringing them up as well. Your counterargument example is actually supporting evidence how strong this is at L1.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I've changed my answer to a Vuman Peace Cleric with the Healer feat and spells Healing Word and Bless and Guidance.
Grab a few healer kits and the best armor you can afford, and you're everyone's best friend. You're adding to people's saves. You're adding to people's attacks. You're adding to people's skill checks. You're healing them all, all day long, and you're doing it without magic. Why is this the most OP L1 build? Because it makes your whole party OP, whether they tried to or not.
They need to attack? Emboldening Bond combo'd with Bless is +2d4 hit bonus to 2 party members, and +1d4 to a 3rd. They need to save? Same as above ^ 2d4 to 2 ally, 1d4 saves to a 3rd. Skills? Emboldening Bond + Guidance is +2d4 to skill checks. Need HP? You can auto 1HP to any fallen ally as an action. -or- 1d6+4+[1], avg 8.5 hp healed as an action. No spells needed. Once per ally per short rest.
Like, seriously, if you have ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or a similar high octane campaign that demands a lot from the low level party in a short time-frame, you know how quickly a party of L1 characters runs out of steam because they cannot keep everyone's HP topped up and with this character in the group you're going to be a full HP power-team of nonstop questing all day and night long.
The problem with this is the set up time and the corresponding action economy on the enemy. Basically your cleric is not getting in the fight and worse is not healing anyone until round 3. Giving 3 players +1d4 is not really worth an entire action at 1st level.
Try this on with a 4-person party and a ruthless DM on the first goblin encounter of LMOP or the lizard man encounter in the Wildemont sourcebook and you will probably get wasted.
A 1st level party needs to do down enemies as fast as possible to survive and if you are not downing enemies you need to be bringing your allies back. Throwing a shield of faith on the Barbarian and charging into combat with your mace is probably going to take you further since you have now both buffed an ally and made an attack in your first turn.
At 2nd and 3rd level the math changes on this quite a bit as party members will survive more hits.
1. This doesn't look like you're posting an OP L1 build to me.
2. What I posted is extremely flexible and has lasting power. The Emboldening Bond lasts 10 minutes and can easily be applied before a fight, or last for more than one fight. At no point did I say "No matter the circumstance spend your first two turns buffing your allies regardless of the situation". This character is supposed to be a variant Human, not a strawman.
3.a The goal is never to be healing during a fight whenever possible. But, this build can do so fairly well despite that, as it does it without using a spell slot. Remember, L1 characters have 2 slots. Being able to heal every party member roughly 8.5HP once per short rest without spending a slot is unparalleled. There isn't a more powerful healing option at L1. Think there is? Name it.
3.b. Even if you kept your Healer feat healing to out of combat, just for the giggles, even that adds unprecedented staying power to a L1 team, as you can immediately patch your whole team up after the fight without spending spells on it. The Healer feat is OP.
4.a. Adding hit chance to allies, as well as saving bonuses in the process, has a far larger benefit than you likely realize. Goblins have an AC of 15, and a typical L1 character's hit bonus is +5. You'd need to roll a 10 or higher to hit. That's 55% hit chance. Adding just a d4 is another 2.5 on average, bringing your hit chance up to 77.5%. An increase in damage of 23%. To 3 of your allies. That is +69%. The ROI on Bless is 1.4 rounds. Combat will... even at L1, last 1.4 rounds.
4.b. If you did have Emboldening Bond already active and managed to toss a Bless up, we can also look at what that +2d4 is doing. That's an average of +5. Bring the hit chance all the way up to 80% for two of those three characters. That's a 45% increase to them in average damage output over baseline. Your totals is now at +45%, +45%, +23% damage to those allies. That's +113%, more than a whole person.
4.c. (Added in edit) If one of your allies uses something like GWM the math ratchets into overdrive. They'll need a roll of 15+ to hit, 30% hit rate. You boost that to 42.5% with a single d4 effect, and to 55% with both. This represents a +42% and a +83% damage increase for this character, and, funnily enough this character is doing far more damage than you were going to. Now, should they use that GWM against goblins? Specifically... goblins? No. Goblins have 7hp. 2d6+13 or whatever is overkill. But being able to bring a 2d6+13 damage attack all the way from 30% hitrate to 55% hitrate against a higher hp/cr target at this level would be game changing. Ie OP for L1.
4.d. No you won't need it, probably, for a fight vs the goblins but the whole time you've added more % damage than you could have ever done yourself, you're simultaneously protecting them with save bonuses as well.
5. Say two of your L1 allies get dropped to 0HP in the Goblin ambush. This character can run to one, Healer feat heal them either just to 1 hp or burn the 1d6+5 HP heal on them, and then Bonus Action healing word the 2nd ally, bringing them up as well. Your counterargument example is actually supporting evidence how strong this is at L1.
I’ll name a more powerful healing option. Magic initiate (v. human, druid spells, more specifically goodberry) plus life cleric. Goodberry now heals 40 hp per cast, 4 for each of ten berries. Magic initiate to do this once is fine, but there’s more! Taking strixhaven initiate instead allows the cleric to cast it 3 times (which the cleric will never need to do) for 120 hp (probably more than twice the entire party’s max hp) in a day, and leftovers (which there will be if this is done) get carried into the next day. How practical this really is in an actual session is up for debate. But the numbers don’t lie.
I actually already posted that build here before because support characters aren’t popular here. It’s all damage output.
I’ll name a more powerful healing option. Magic initiate (v. human, druid spells, more specifically goodberry) plus life cleric. Goodberry now heals 40 hp per cast, 4 for each of ten berries. Magic initiate to do this once is fine, but there’s more! Taking strixhaven initiate instead allows the cleric to cast it 3 times (which the cleric will never need to do) for 120 hp (probably more than twice the entire party’s max hp) in a day, and leftovers (which there will be if this is done) get carried into the next day. How practical this really is in an actual session is up for debate. But the numbers don’t lie.
I actually already posted that build here before because support characters aren’t popular here. It’s all damage output.
Whether that even works is debated. Life clerics disciple of life requires a couple things for the bonus healing to apply. It has to be a spell. 1st level +. So far so good. But it applies when you cast the spell. And, you have to be the one providing the healing. Both of those are big "?" marks your DM will need to decide for you one way or the other. I've never played a game where a DM allowed it.
BUT, assuming it does work for your DM, let's compare:
If you have a 4 person group, 5 person group, or 6 person group. I know I have larger groups so that certainly affects my opinion. So let's look at all 3 of the more common group sizes.
Goodberry is going to be 40hp. Let's assume you do whatever you gotta do and you get to do it 3 times. 120hp a day. This is, a lot. Absolutely. No arguement there. Having 120hp of healing a day at L1 is superb. But best?
Healer feat let's you heal an ally 1d6+5 at this level. Avg. 8.5. If 4 man team that's 34 hp, plus 34 more per short rest. 2.5 short rests needed to match the goodberries. But a 5 man team is 42.5 hp per rest, so less than 2 short rests to exceed the goodberry. And a larger 6 man team is 51hp per short rest, less than one and half short rest to exceed good berry.
You say numbers don't lie, and you're right. What if our party of 6 fought all day and got in 4 short rests, how much healer healing could we have done? 255hp of healing. When I said no other L1 healing came close I wasn't exaggerating.
So the question becomes, how many short rests can you have? If you're in a town being overrun by kobold, who raid and pillage for about 7 hours... hypothetically, you can certainly squeeze in a couple short rests to get your whole team's hp topped off.
And, again, all while not using your spells. The goodberry option used all that character's spells. The healer has his available for emergency, buffs, etc. Or even attacking if that floats your boat more.
So while goodberry+life cleric is fantastic 👌 (if your DM even allows it) the healer feat can easily out-heal even that. Honestly that feat alone is what makes the character OP at L1. You can realistically add it to any class and crank out the same heals. I chose peace for this because it can really make the party excel overall, not just with HP staying power. But in any area of play, and as needed. So very flexible. Facing high AC targets? Bless and Emboldening will up your teams fighting abilities dramatically. Enemy effects causing problems? Same abilities add huge protection. Even have the ability to boost skill checks in adventure, social or other areas.
It makes your little squad of L1 loveable idiots able to just fight after fight after fight all day long as needed. And makes them better at it while they're doing it. Nothing else accomplishes this as well, so it is my candidatefor OP L1 build. And quite frankly I'm not sure why I'm getting flack for it, and having to defend it. If you wanna post what you think is a better build, just do that instead.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I’ll name a more powerful healing option. Magic initiate (v. human, druid spells, more specifically goodberry) plus life cleric. Goodberry now heals 40 hp per cast, 4 for each of ten berries. Magic initiate to do this once is fine, but there’s more! Taking strixhaven initiate instead allows the cleric to cast it 3 times (which the cleric will never need to do) for 120 hp (probably more than twice the entire party’s max hp) in a day, and leftovers (which there will be if this is done) get carried into the next day. How practical this really is in an actual session is up for debate. But the numbers don’t lie.
I actually already posted that build here before because support characters aren’t popular here. It’s all damage output.
Whether that even works is debated. Life clerics disciple of life requires a couple things for the bonus healing to apply. It has to be a spell. 1st level +. So far so good. But it applies when you cast the spell. And, you have to be the one providing the healing. Both of those are big "?" marks your DM will need to decide for you one way or the other. I've never played a game where a DM allowed it.
BUT, assuming it does work for your DM, let's compare:
If you have a 4 person group, 5 person group, or 6 person group. I know I have larger groups so that certainly affects my opinion. So let's look at all 3 of the more common group sizes.
Goodberry is going to be 40hp. Let's assume you do whatever you gotta do and you get to do it 3 times. 120hp a day. This is, a lot. Absolutely. No arguement there. Having 120hp of healing a day at L1 is superb. But best?
Healer feat let's you heal an ally 1d6+5 at this level. Avg. 8.5. If 4 man team that's 34 hp, plus 34 more per short rest. 2.5 short rests needed to match the goodberries. But a 5 man team is 42.5 hp per rest, so less than 2 short rests to exceed the goodberry. And a larger 6 man team is 51hp per short rest, less than one and half short rest to exceed good berry.
You say numbers don't lie, and you're right. What if our party of 6 fought all day and got in 4 short rests, how much healer healing could we have done? 255hp of healing. When I said no other L1 healing came close I wasn't exaggerating.
So the question becomes, how many short rests can you have? If you're in a town being overrun by kobold, who raid and pillage for about 7 hours... hypothetically, you can certainly squeeze in a couple short rests to get your whole team's hp topped off.
And, again, all while not using your spells. The goodberry option used all that character's spells. The healer has his available for emergency, buffs, etc. Or even attacking if that floats your boat more.
So while goodberry+life cleric is fantastic 👌 (if your DM even allows it) the healer feat can easily out-heal even that. Honestly that feat alone is what makes the character OP at L1. You can realistically add it to any class and crank out the same heals. I chose peace for this because it can really make the party excel overall, not just with HP staying power. But in any area of play, and as needed. So very flexible. Facing high AC targets? Bless and Emboldening will up your teams fighting abilities dramatically. Enemy effects causing problems? Same abilities add huge protection. Even have the ability to boost skill checks in adventure, social or other areas.
It makes your little squad of L1 loveable idiots able to just fight after fight after fight all day long as needed. And makes them better at it while they're doing it. Nothing else accomplishes this as well, so it is my candidatefor OP L1 build. And quite frankly I'm not sure why I'm getting flack for it, and having to defend it. If you wanna post what you think is a better build, just do that instead.
I am not actually attacking your build, I said mine might not be practical at level 1, while your build is. Plus other non-healing benefits on your build. My build was mostly “funny cleric full heals the level 10 barb lol.” But sage advice confirmed that this is how the life cleric works with gooodberry RAW and RAI. The dm allowing strixhaven is honestly the bigger problem. Plus, I already posted the exact build before.
But do you want power? And do you not care about anything else except more heals? The strixhaven backgrounds give the strixhaven feat, take either quandrix or witherbloom for goodberry. Then add vhuman for magic initiate, taking goodberry. Although this is probably not needed and not all dms will allow strixhaven backgrounds, it gives 160/long rest. For a party of 5, that is stronger for 2 short rests. Plus leftovers carry over to the next day, because goodberry is balanced.
But I guess the builds give better numbers in different situations. For a big party that takes many short rests, healer is more powerful. For a small party that takes few short rests, life/goodberry is more powerful. Your build is to warlock casting as mine is to every other caster’s casting. Both our builds are likely drive their parties to the style that makes their own thing better. Though once we take into account that yours does things that aren’t healing even if the party somehow needs 100 healing in a single day at level 1, which won’t happen in a normal game, while mine doesn’t, your build is more op.
But, what about… both? The strixhaven background doesn’t conflict with vhuman healer, which doesn’t conflict with the life domain. Is healing the ONLY thing you care about? The hybrid build gives 120/day that carries over to tomorrow plus 8.5 per guy per rest. All at level 1. UNLIMITED HEALING!!!! Jokes aside, there’s the most healing a level 1 can do in a day. Not one or the other, but a bit of both. All it needs is a dm generous enough to allow the strixhaven backgrounds into a non-strixhaven campaign, and follow the slightly broken RAI, and give that many healer kits. I wish you good luck if you want to test the “hybrid uber-healer.”
Anyway, thank you for reading this essay about why either is good but both is best.
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Royalty among the charge kingdom. All will fall before our glorious assault!
But, what about… both? The strixhaven background doesn’t conflict with vhuman healer, which doesn’t conflict with the life domain. Is healing the ONLY thing you care about? The hybrid build gives 120/day that carries over to tomorrow plus 8.5 per guy per rest. All at level 1. UNLIMITED HEALING!!!! Jokes aside, there’s the most healing a level 1 can do in a day. Not one or the other, but a bit of both. All it needs is a dm generous enough to allow the strixhaven backgrounds into a non-strixhaven campaign, and follow the slightly broken RAI, and give that many healer kits. I wish you good luck if you want to test the “hybrid uber-healer.”
Anyway, thank you for reading this essay about why either is good but both is best.
So Vuman. Life Cleric. Healer feat. Quandrix background > Goodberry. Can cast it x3 now. 120hp GBs and 8.5HP action heals while your healing kit supplies hold out. Truly terrifying stuff indeed.
If. Life+Goodberry works. And If. Dm allows strixhaven stuff backgrounds.
Yeah, this might be best healer possible for L1. Idk that was the only thing I'd want my character capable of though to be best OP build. But if I did, you're right, this would be the way.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
1. This doesn't look like you're posting an OP L1 build to me.
No I am talking about a L1 build. Your build will grow into power at level 2 or level 3, but at level 1 it is not very powerful
'
2. What I posted is extremely flexible and has lasting power. The Emboldening Bond lasts 10 minutes and can easily be applied before a fight, or last for more than one fight. At no point did I say "No matter the circumstance spend your first two turns buffing your allies regardless of the situation". This character is supposed to be a variant Human, not a strawman.
Sure if you can apply it before a fight, but how common is that at level 1 and even if you do apply it, it is a nice substantial buff, but hardly as powerful as say sleep.
3.a The goal is never to be healing during a fight whenever possible. But, this build can do so fairly well despite that, as it does it without using a spell slot. Remember, L1 characters have 2 slots. Being able to heal every party member roughly 8.5HP once per short rest without spending a slot is unparalleled. There isn't a more powerful healing option at L1. Think there is? Name it.
So you should heal during a fight if someone goes down and you won't be able to do that. Healing Word is perfect for this, but you can't do it because you are using a leveled spell the second round, which is when you will likely lose your first party member.
3.b. Even if you kept your Healer feat healing to out of combat, just for the giggles, even that adds unprecedented staying power to a L1 team, as you can immediately patch your whole team up after the fight without spending spells on it. The Healer feat is OP.
It is not unprecedented, a Barbarian in Rage has more staying power, a lot more if you buff him with shield of faith. And you are also losing action economy as you will likely lose one of your allies in round 2 (maybe you).
4.a. Adding hit chance to allies, as well as saving bonuses in the process, has a far larger benefit than you likely realize.
Only if they are alive to take them, and removing actions is deadly at first level. I agree if we are talking about a 2nd or 3rd level build, but on a 1st level build you are missing what is important and that is making sure your enemies beat you to 0 hps.
Goblins have an AC of 15, and a typical L1 character's hit bonus is +5. You'd need to roll a 10 or higher to hit
So your chance of hitting them is OVER 50% and a hit has about a 50% chance of killing them in one shot and taking an action away from them every round for the entire fight. That is on top of the fact that you can go shield of faith on your most powerful character and dramatically increase the chance she stays in the fight in addition to landing this.
Wait a turn and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 1 less round. Wait 2 turns and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 2 less rounds. That is assuming you are still alive. Goblins have a base 45% chance of hitting you and 2 hits will down you, taking away all the buffs you just made (and all your future actions in the fight). They can also hide as a bonus action, so if you are playing something like LMOP where they are hiding by the side of the road they have a 60% chance of hiding effectively, which brings their chance to hit up to 70%. Assuming you have a passive perception of 13 their chance of hding successfully is 65% bringing their aggregate chance to hit up to 62%. If two of them shoot at you (which they will because you are casting/buffing), more than likely they are going to down you in the second round. Also note passive perception is not affected by the ad4 bonus.
If you have a party of 4 characters the chance your 1d4 bonus matters at all in the first round is 19% (assuming 1 attack each and you are in the middle of initiative order).
This means 81% of the time your first turn action does not change the first round of combat at all. This as opposed to a straight 55% chance of changing the round if you attack and roughly a 27% chance of killing a goblin.
Moving on to the second round; you cast bless, assuming you hang on to concentration (a big assumption). The chance of affecting an attack in the second turn is 45% (includes 2d4 on those who go after you in combat). So again you could potentially kill another goblin here.
.Adding just a d4 is another 2.5 on average, bringing your hit chance up to 77.5%.
A d4 has a straight 12.5% chance of changing the outcome on an attack - 1.25% chance of missing by 4 and changing, 2.5% chance of missing by 3 and changing, 3.75% chance of missing by 2 and changing, and a 5% chance of missing by 1 and changing. 87.5 of the time it does not matter at all.
With 3 attacks a turn (by people other than you) that is a 33%chance of changing at least 1 attack and a 67% chance of being meaningless. That assumes all of them get the bonus, however with initiative only those who go AFTER you get it that turn.
Doing this from a damage perspective, this is a straight 12.5% boost in average non-crit damage. Assuming your average party member hits for 8 damage it will be 1 point per turn for 3 other party members or 3 hit points per turn total. With a 7 hit point goiblin this means on average this extra damage is going to take 3 rounds to result in one more death. This assumes no damage lost in "overkill". I have already demonstrated that your cleric can on average do the same in 2 rounds.
An increase in damage of 23%. To 3 of your allies. That is +69%. The ROI on Bless is 1.4 rounds. Combat will... even at L1, last 1.4 rounds.
That is not how math works. If each party member is doing 23% more damage, then your party as a whole is doing 23% more damage, not 69% more.
If your 3 party members were doing 4, 4, and 8 before bless you are doing 16 damage total.
If now you are doing 5 (+25%), 5 (+25%) and 10 (+25%) after bless then your your total is 20 which is 25% more than 16.
Also if it is a party of 4 it would be doing 33% more damage if you attacked instead of casting (asuming your attacks are the average middle of the pack).
4.b. If you did have Emboldening Bond already active and managed to toss a Bless up, we can also look at what that +2d4 is doing. That's an average of +5. Bring the hit chance all the way up to 80% for two of those three characters. That's a 45% increase to them in average damage output over baseline. Your totals is now at +45%, +45%, +23% damage to those allies. That's +113%, more than a whole person.
Again it does not stack. +45% +45% +23%= +37% total (assuming all 3 do the same damage), not +113% and this 37% does not actually come all in until the 3rd round (unless you outright won initiative and then it is the second). As I illustrated they get +33% just for you swinging, which would be effective in the first round.
This principle is true whether they do 3 damage on average or 30 damage on average.
4.c. (Added in edit) If one of your allies uses something like GWM the math ratchets into overdrive. They'll need a roll of 15+ to hit, 30% hit rate. You boost that to 42.5% with a single d4 effect, and to 55% with both. This represents a +42% and a +83% damage increase for this character, and, funnily enough this character is doing far more damage than you were going to. Now, should they use that GWM against goblins? Specifically... goblins? No. Goblins have 7hp. 2d6+13 or whatever is overkill. But being able to bring a 2d6+13 damage attack all the way from 30% hitrate to 55% hitrate against a higher hp/cr target at this level would be game changing. Ie OP for L1.
Please provide an example of a published level 1 encounter this will matter in. Going +10 damage on an enemy with 7hps is just plain stupid. I said in my oroginal post and in this post that this subclass gets more powerful with levels.
4.d. No you won't need it, probably, for a fight vs the goblins but the whole time you've added more % damage than you could have ever done yourself, you're simultaneously protecting them with save bonuses as well.
You won't need it ever at level 1, even if you have someone that actually has that feat.
5. Say two of your L1 allies get dropped to 0HP in the Goblin ambush. This character can run to one, Healer feat heal them either just to 1 hp or burn the 1d6+5 HP heal on them, and then Bonus Action healing word the 2nd ally, bringing them up as well. Your counterargument example is actually supporting evidence how strong this is at L1.
That is an action. You can't do this if you use EB on your first turn and Bless on your second turn.
1. This doesn't look like you're posting an OP L1 build to me.
No I am talking about a L1 build. Your build will grow into power at level 2 or level 3, but at level 1 it is not very powerful
Your definition of powerful, and mine, are clearly not the same.
2. What I posted is extremely flexible and has lasting power. The Emboldening Bond lasts 10 minutes and can easily be applied before a fight, or last for more than one fight. At no point did I say "No matter the circumstance spend your first two turns buffing your allies regardless of the situation". This character is supposed to be a variant Human, not a strawman.
Sure if you can apply it before a fight, but how common is that at level 1 and even if you do apply it, it is a nice substantial buff, but hardly as powerful as say sleep.
???? Is your argument that the only way to have a powerful L1 build is to have sleep spell? That's it, the whole build is just "cast sleep"? Ok.
3.a The goal is never to be healing during a fight whenever possible. But, this build can do so fairly well despite that, as it does it without using a spell slot. Remember, L1 characters have 2 slots. Being able to heal every party member roughly 8.5HP once per short rest without spending a slot is unparalleled. There isn't a more powerful healing option at L1. Think there is? Name it.
So you should heal during a fight if someone goes down and you won't be able to do that. Healing Word is perfect for this, but you can't do it because you are using a leveled spell the second round, which is when you will likely lose your first party member.
I have no idea what you're talking about. 1st level characters have two spells dude. Two. For like, the whole day. Using one of your two slots for 1d4+3 HP is criminally bad. Unless you absolutely must do it to save someone. I even recognize that clutch heals might be needed from healing word and is why I included it in the build. So... ???
3.b. Even if you kept your Healer feat healing to out of combat, just for the giggles, even that adds unprecedented staying power to a L1 team, as you can immediately patch your whole team up after the fight without spending spells on it. The Healer feat is OP.
It is not unprecedented, a Barbarian in Rage has more staying power, a lot more if you buff him with shield of faith. And you are also losing action economy as you will likely lose one of your allies in round 2 (maybe you).
Are you concerned with only fighting a single group of 4 goblins for the entire day and that's that? Mission accomplished?
If you are only fighting a single combat in a day, yes, my build, which is specifically designed to allow many, many combats in a day, won't do it for you, will it.
4.a. Adding hit chance to allies, as well as saving bonuses in the process, has a far larger benefit than you likely realize.
Only if they are alive to take them, and removing actions is deadly at first level. I agree if we are talking about a 2nd or 3rd level build, but on a 1st level build you are missing what is important and that is making sure your enemies beat you to 0 hps.
Only if they're alive? I'm not sure what to make of your objections here, again, they seem so random. Yes, I guess if your entire party dies in a previous encounter, this character is going to have some difficulty soloing adventures designed for a party. What with it being a support/healer character. Though, the odds of finding yourself in a position where your whole party is dead seems unlikely with this build in the team, so IDK.
Goblins have an AC of 15, and a typical L1 character's hit bonus is +5. You'd need to roll a 10 or higher to hit
So your chance of hitting them is OVER 50% and a hit has about a 50% chance of killing them in one shot and taking an action away from them every round for the entire fight. That is on top of the fact that you can go shield of faith on your most powerful character and dramatically increase the chance she stays in the fight in addition to landing this.
?? Do you play L1 barbarians in LMoP all the time and are just looking for a buffbot? And, even if you are... what is up with your insistence that Shield of Faith is better than Bless?
Wait a turn and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 1 less round. Wait 2 turns and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 2 less rounds. That is assuming you are still alive. Goblins have a base 45% chance of hitting you and 2 hits will down you, taking away all the buffs you just made (and all your future actions in the fight). They can also hide as a bonus action, so if you are playing something like LMOP where they are hiding by the side of the road they have a 60% chance of hiding effectively, which brings their chance to hit up to 70%. Assuming you have a passive perception of 13 their chance of hding successfully is 65% bringing their aggregate chance to hit up to 62%. If two of them shoot at you (which they will because you are casting/buffing), more than likely they are going to down you in the second round. Also note passive perception is not affected by the ad4 bonus.
None of these numbers add up. IDK where you got them.
Goblins don't have a base 45% chance of hitting AC18. They have a +4 hit modifier. They need to roll a 14 or higher. That's a 35% chance to hit. They do avg 5.5 damage and this character would have 11 hp. 2 hits is likely to drop him, but not guaranteed. 3 almost certainly will.
This character would have a passive perception of 15, not 13. Again, where you're getting numbers from IDK. All your math is just wrong here about stealth and hit rates.
If you have a party of 4 characters the chance your 1d4 bonus matters at all in the first round is 19% (assuming 1 attack each and you are in the middle of initiative order).
Those are pretty big assumptions.
This means 81% of the time your first turn action does not change the first round of combat at all. This as opposed to a straight 55% chance of changing the round if you attack and roughly a 27% chance of killing a goblin.
Your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that this character should always and only ever do the same thing and never respond to the situation as it unfolds. That seems like a poor way to determine how effective it is. Since no one would ever do that.
Moving on to the second round; you cast bless, assuming you hang on to concentration (a big assumption). The chance of affecting an attack in the second turn is 45% (includes 2d4 on those who go after you in combat). So again you could potentially kill another goblin here.
??? What. Why are you casting bless twice? You say it won't help in round one and now you're saying we cast it again in round two? I don't even know man. What?
Like, this character can do exactly what you're complaining he can't do. I just don't know what this fixation is about.
.Adding just a d4 is another 2.5 on average, bringing your hit chance up to 77.5%.
A d4 has a straight 12.5% chance of changing the outcome on an attack - 1.25% chance of missing by 4 and changing, 2.5% chance of missing by 3 and changing, 3.75% chance of missing by 2 and changing, and a 5% chance of missing by 1 and changing. 87.5 of the time it does not matter at all.
True. And Shield of Faith has a 10% chance of affecting a hit, so doesn't matter 80% of the time. <-- Which for some reason is what you're advocating this character should burn their spell slot on. So IDK what your objection even is.
With 3 attacks a turn (by people other than you) that is a 33%chance of changing at least 1 attack and a 67% chance of being meaningless. That assumes all of them get the bonus, however with initiative only those who go AFTER you get it that turn.
Big assumption, again. There are plenty of character options that allow party members to attack more than once per turn, and it would apply to them all, and also any opportunity attacks they make. Which, is actually more powerful in this fight that you'd initially expect. The goblins must choose to either disengage or Hide. Now, their ideal move is to hide, of course. but if someone is threatening them, they have a choice to make. Burn that bonus action to disengage, or don't and use it to hide. Blessed targets are far more likely to hit the goblin if they go for the hide, thus discouraging that option and punishing if they take it.
Doing this from a damage perspective, this is a straight 12.5% boost in average non-crit damage.
This is just false, bath math.
Assuming your average party member hits for 8 damage it will be 1 point per turn for 3 other party members or 3 hit points per turn total. With a 7 hit point goiblin this means on average this extra damage is going to take 3 rounds to result in one more death. This assumes no damage lost in "overkill". I have already demonstrated that your cleric can on average do the same in 2 rounds.
All wrong, again.
An increase in damage of 23%. To 3 of your allies. That is +69%. The ROI on Bless is 1.4 rounds. Combat will... even at L1, last 1.4 rounds.
That is not how math works. If each party member is doing 23% more damage, then your party as a whole is doing 23% more damage, not 69% more.
You don't understand, I see. I didn't say your "party was doing 69% more" I said you contributed +69%.
Here, lets use simple numbers. Lets say everyone hits for an average of 10 damage per round. Easy to follow. There are 4 of you. Your party should do 40 damage per round by attacking.
Now, if I spent my turn, instead of attacking, buffing my allies... well, they each attacked still, and I didn't. So we're going to be down, missing, 100% of my damage. <-- This number is important, keep it in mind.
Now, if the buff I gave to all my allies increases their average damage by, say, 20%. Then, each of them will do 2 extra damage, each having contributed 120% of normal. Total will be 36. MY contribution to that was the +20% +20% +20% ie 60% of my normal just attacking value.
Make sense? So, when I say it is +69% that is what I'm referring to. Assuming all characters deal samesy damage (which is already a big assumption, and a false one) then I've 'made-up-for 69% of my normal contribution immediately on the first round of casting it. But it keeps going even after the first round, without further loss from me. So, the ROI...also known as Return On Investment is at the 1.4 rounds mark. This is the point where the number of attacks made has, on average, contributed as much damage as if I would have just attacked.
Now, if you assume instead that the party members you're blessing hit at all even a little harder than you do, then the ROI happens all that much faster.
If your 3 party members were doing 4, 4, and 8 before bless you are doing 16 damage total.
If now you are doing 5 (+25%), 5 (+25%) and 10 (+25%) after bless then your your total is 20 which is 25% more than 16.
Also if it is a party of 4 it would be doing 33% more damage if you attacked instead of casting (asuming your attacks are the average middle of the pack).
None of this means anything. Again IDK where your math is coming from or what you're trying to explain with it. It just seems wrong. Like a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening, I'm not sure where to even start unpacking the problem.
4.b. If you did have Emboldening Bond already active and managed to toss a Bless up, we can also look at what that +2d4 is doing. That's an average of +5. Bring the hit chance all the way up to 80% for two of those three characters. That's a 45% increase to them in average damage output over baseline. Your totals is now at +45%, +45%, +23% damage to those allies. That's +113%, more than a whole person.
Again it does not stack. +45% +45% +23%= +37% total (assuming all 3 do the same damage), not +113% and this 37% does not actually come all in until the 3rd round (unless you outright won initiative and then it is the second). As I illustrated they get +33% just for you swinging, which would be effective in the first round.
This principle is true whether they do 3 damage on average or 30 damage on average.
No.
4.c. (Added in edit) If one of your allies uses something like GWM the math ratchets into overdrive. They'll need a roll of 15+ to hit, 30% hit rate. You boost that to 42.5% with a single d4 effect, and to 55% with both. This represents a +42% and a +83% damage increase for this character, and, funnily enough this character is doing far more damage than you were going to. Now, should they use that GWM against goblins? Specifically... goblins? No. Goblins have 7hp. 2d6+13 or whatever is overkill. But being able to bring a 2d6+13 damage attack all the way from 30% hitrate to 55% hitrate against a higher hp/cr target at this level would be game changing. Ie OP for L1.
Please provide an example of a published level 1 encounter this will matter in. Going +10 damage on an enemy with 7hps is just plain stupid. I said in my oroginal post and in this post that this subclass gets more powerful with levels.
No.
4.d. No you won't need it, probably, for a fight vs the goblins but the whole time you've added more % damage than you could have ever done yourself, you're simultaneously protecting them with save bonuses as well.
You won't need it ever at level 1, even if you have someone that actually has that feat.
No idea what feat you're talking about. This comment was about how you can buff saving throws.
5. Say two of your L1 allies get dropped to 0HP in the Goblin ambush. This character can run to one, Healer feat heal them either just to 1 hp or burn the 1d6+5 HP heal on them, and then Bonus Action healing word the 2nd ally, bringing them up as well. Your counterargument example is actually supporting evidence how strong this is at L1.
That is an action. You can't do this if you use EB on your first turn and Bless on your second turn.
You seem hardstuck on this idea that this character must, under threat of law, use EB followed by Bless in the 1st two rounds of combat. No matter what combat. No matter the initiative. No matter the placement or positioning. Just an automaton that can only and must only EB round 1 then Bless round 2.
And you know what, I have no idea where you got that notion from. The whole point of this build was its flexibility. It is a healing monstrosity, that can also buff allies.
You wouldn't cast Bless or use EB in a situation where it isn't helpful. IDK why you're so fixated on that. Having the ability doesn't force you to use it when a different character action makes more sense. This character, has those options.
Need buffs? it has them in spades. Need heals? All day baby! Need damage? It can still attack and cast cantrips, can't it? It keeps the party alive and performing their best. By keeping them in the action, and making them shine in whatever they do. Your party will literally level up before this character runs out of steam for the day, because he can't, because his healing isn't spell slot based.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I'm pretty sure the person asking this doesn't want to use these builds for evil and overshadowing other players. They're just curious what people will say, what discussions will be sparked, and how much more about D&D readers will know after having read it. Also, as a resource for people who DO want to use them.
greatsword+the poison coating = 2d6+3(slashing)+2d8(poison)+1d4(poison) for an average of 19 damage per round.
ignores poison resistance
and you only have to use 1 bonus action per 10 rounds to do this
lowest possible damage in a round=8
highest possible damage in a round= 35
16 ac(not the best, but still ok)
12 hp
Could I ask were the values come from? I believe the poisoner feat has a 2d8 but with a save, poison damage. But where does the extra d4 come from?
Also, poisoner poison lasts for a minute <or until used> which means they'd need to BA each turn they wanna use it. And it costs 50gp to make and at L1 that creates only 2 doses.
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I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
greatsword+the poison coating = 2d6+3(slashing)+2d8(poison)+1d4(poison) for an average of 19 damage per round.
The poison is consumed on a hit, is negated by a successful DC 14 Constitution save, and has a cost that isn't negligible until tier 2 (I don't know where the 1d4 comes from, but since 2d6+3+2d8 is 19, might just be a typo). It's not a bad feat, but it's not amazing.
according to http://dnd5e.*******.com/feat:poisoner, When a creature takes damage from the coated weapon or ammunition, that creature must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take 2d8 poison damage and become poisoned until the end of your next turn. and according to https://roll20.net basic poison does 1d4 damage
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Kevin_Chronicler
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I know. There are many types of op. Different situations cause different things to be good. I haven’t seen many healers here. It’s probably not as op as the dps builds, but it’s unique in this thread.
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Variant Human Fighter, Crossbow Expert Feat, Archery Fighting Style, Hand Crossbow.
That +2 to attack rolls adds a lot of damage. You’ll also have high initiative because you’re a Dex build, and good self healing from Second Wind.
Custom Lineage Hexblade Warlock. I know that's been said here before, but this particular build combines not only hexblade's high damage but also makes for an insane control option. How? Take the Mobile feat - it does some okay things, but the main one is "When you make a melee attack against a creature, you don't provoke opportunity attacks from that creature for the rest of the turn, whether you hit or not". Then, take the Booming Blade cantrip from Tasha's. Why is this overpowered? You run up to a creature, hit it with Booming Blade (all your hexblade juiciness still applies, because the spell specifies that normal effects still occur) then slip away without provoking an opportunity attack. If the creature wants to do anything, it has to take that Booming Blade damage. Obviously this wouldn't work against things focusing on ranged attacks, but it's INSANE for melee monsters, whether they choose to move or not.
Will everyone stop calling him "The Demogorgon"? It's his name, not a title!
It also does a fairly reliable amount of damage - assuming your target has hexblade's curse and hex and you're using a longsword, 14 (1d10+1d6+5) per round, plus that control. On a crit, which you have a high enough chance of, that's 23 (2d10+2d6+5) or 19 (2d10+1d6+5) depending on DM rules.
Will everyone stop calling him "The Demogorgon"? It's his name, not a title!
If I may, why are you asking this?
I've changed my answer to a Vuman Peace Cleric with the Healer feat and spells Healing Word and Bless and Guidance.
Grab a few healer kits and the best armor you can afford, and you're everyone's best friend. You're adding to people's saves. You're adding to people's attacks. You're adding to people's skill checks. You're healing them all, all day long, and you're doing it without magic. Why is this the most OP L1 build? Because it makes your whole party OP, whether they tried to or not.
They need to attack? Emboldening Bond combo'd with Bless is +2d4 hit bonus to 2 party members, and +1d4 to a 3rd.
They need to save? Same as above ^ 2d4 to 2 ally, 1d4 saves to a 3rd.
Skills? Emboldening Bond + Guidance is +2d4 to skill checks.
Need HP? You can auto 1HP to any fallen ally as an action. -or- 1d6+4+[1], avg 8.5 hp healed as an action. No spells needed. Once per ally per short rest.
Like, seriously, if you have ever played Hoard of the Dragon Queen, or a similar high octane campaign that demands a lot from the low level party in a short time-frame, you know how quickly a party of L1 characters runs out of steam because they cannot keep everyone's HP topped up and with this character in the group you're going to be a full HP power-team of nonstop questing all day and night long.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The problem with this is the set up time and the corresponding action economy on the enemy. Basically your cleric is not getting in the fight and worse is not healing anyone until round 3. Giving 3 players +1d4 is not really worth an entire action at 1st level.
Try this on with a 4-person party and a ruthless DM on the first goblin encounter of LMOP or the lizard man encounter in the Wildemont sourcebook and you will probably get wasted.
A 1st level party needs to do down enemies as fast as possible to survive and if you are not downing enemies you need to be bringing your allies back. Throwing a shield of faith on the Barbarian and charging into combat with your mace is probably going to take you further since you have now both buffed an ally and made an attack in your first turn.
At 2nd and 3rd level the math changes on this quite a bit as party members will survive more hits.
1. This doesn't look like you're posting an OP L1 build to me.
2. What I posted is extremely flexible and has lasting power. The Emboldening Bond lasts 10 minutes and can easily be applied before a fight, or last for more than one fight. At no point did I say "No matter the circumstance spend your first two turns buffing your allies regardless of the situation". This character is supposed to be a variant Human, not a strawman.
3.a The goal is never to be healing during a fight whenever possible. But, this build can do so fairly well despite that, as it does it without using a spell slot. Remember, L1 characters have 2 slots. Being able to heal every party member roughly 8.5HP once per short rest without spending a slot is unparalleled. There isn't a more powerful healing option at L1. Think there is? Name it.
3.b. Even if you kept your Healer feat healing to out of combat, just for the giggles, even that adds unprecedented staying power to a L1 team, as you can immediately patch your whole team up after the fight without spending spells on it. The Healer feat is OP.
4.a. Adding hit chance to allies, as well as saving bonuses in the process, has a far larger benefit than you likely realize. Goblins have an AC of 15, and a typical L1 character's hit bonus is +5. You'd need to roll a 10 or higher to hit. That's 55% hit chance. Adding just a d4 is another 2.5 on average, bringing your hit chance up to 77.5%. An increase in damage of 23%. To 3 of your allies. That is +69%. The ROI on Bless is 1.4 rounds. Combat will... even at L1, last 1.4 rounds.
4.b. If you did have Emboldening Bond already active and managed to toss a Bless up, we can also look at what that +2d4 is doing. That's an average of +5. Bring the hit chance all the way up to 80% for two of those three characters. That's a 45% increase to them in average damage output over baseline. Your totals is now at +45%, +45%, +23% damage to those allies. That's +113%, more than a whole person.
4.c. (Added in edit) If one of your allies uses something like GWM the math ratchets into overdrive. They'll need a roll of 15+ to hit, 30% hit rate. You boost that to 42.5% with a single d4 effect, and to 55% with both. This represents a +42% and a +83% damage increase for this character, and, funnily enough this character is doing far more damage than you were going to. Now, should they use that GWM against goblins? Specifically... goblins? No. Goblins have 7hp. 2d6+13 or whatever is overkill. But being able to bring a 2d6+13 damage attack all the way from 30% hitrate to 55% hitrate against a higher hp/cr target at this level would be game changing. Ie OP for L1.
4.d. No you won't need it, probably, for a fight vs the goblins but the whole time you've added more % damage than you could have ever done yourself, you're simultaneously protecting them with save bonuses as well.
5. Say two of your L1 allies get dropped to 0HP in the Goblin ambush. This character can run to one, Healer feat heal them either just to 1 hp or burn the 1d6+5 HP heal on them, and then Bonus Action healing word the 2nd ally, bringing them up as well. Your counterargument example is actually supporting evidence how strong this is at L1.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I’ll name a more powerful healing option. Magic initiate (v. human, druid spells, more specifically goodberry) plus life cleric. Goodberry now heals 40 hp per cast, 4 for each of ten berries. Magic initiate to do this once is fine, but there’s more! Taking strixhaven initiate instead allows the cleric to cast it 3 times (which the cleric will never need to do) for 120 hp (probably more than twice the entire party’s max hp) in a day, and leftovers (which there will be if this is done) get carried into the next day. How practical this really is in an actual session is up for debate. But the numbers don’t lie.
I actually already posted that build here before because support characters aren’t popular here. It’s all damage output.
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Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
Whether that even works is debated. Life clerics disciple of life requires a couple things for the bonus healing to apply. It has to be a spell. 1st level +. So far so good. But it applies when you cast the spell. And, you have to be the one providing the healing. Both of those are big "?" marks your DM will need to decide for you one way or the other. I've never played a game where a DM allowed it.
BUT, assuming it does work for your DM, let's compare:
If you have a 4 person group, 5 person group, or 6 person group. I know I have larger groups so that certainly affects my opinion. So let's look at all 3 of the more common group sizes.
Goodberry is going to be 40hp. Let's assume you do whatever you gotta do and you get to do it 3 times. 120hp a day. This is, a lot. Absolutely. No arguement there. Having 120hp of healing a day at L1 is superb. But best?
Healer feat let's you heal an ally 1d6+5 at this level. Avg. 8.5. If 4 man team that's 34 hp, plus 34 more per short rest. 2.5 short rests needed to match the goodberries. But a 5 man team is 42.5 hp per rest, so less than 2 short rests to exceed the goodberry. And a larger 6 man team is 51hp per short rest, less than one and half short rest to exceed good berry.
You say numbers don't lie, and you're right. What if our party of 6 fought all day and got in 4 short rests, how much healer healing could we have done? 255hp of healing. When I said no other L1 healing came close I wasn't exaggerating.
So the question becomes, how many short rests can you have? If you're in a town being overrun by kobold, who raid and pillage for about 7 hours... hypothetically, you can certainly squeeze in a couple short rests to get your whole team's hp topped off.
And, again, all while not using your spells. The goodberry option used all that character's spells. The healer has his available for emergency, buffs, etc. Or even attacking if that floats your boat more.
So while goodberry+life cleric is fantastic 👌 (if your DM even allows it) the healer feat can easily out-heal even that. Honestly that feat alone is what makes the character OP at L1. You can realistically add it to any class and crank out the same heals. I chose peace for this because it can really make the party excel overall, not just with HP staying power. But in any area of play, and as needed. So very flexible. Facing high AC targets? Bless and Emboldening will up your teams fighting abilities dramatically. Enemy effects causing problems? Same abilities add huge protection. Even have the ability to boost skill checks in adventure, social or other areas.
It makes your little squad of L1 loveable idiots able to just fight after fight after fight all day long as needed. And makes them better at it while they're doing it. Nothing else accomplishes this as well, so it is my candidatefor OP L1 build. And quite frankly I'm not sure why I'm getting flack for it, and having to defend it. If you wanna post what you think is a better build, just do that instead.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
I am not actually attacking your build, I said mine might not be practical at level 1, while your build is. Plus other non-healing benefits on your build. My build was mostly “funny cleric full heals the level 10 barb lol.” But sage advice confirmed that this is how the life cleric works with gooodberry RAW and RAI. The dm allowing strixhaven is honestly the bigger problem. Plus, I already posted the exact build before.
But do you want power? And do you not care about anything else except more heals? The strixhaven backgrounds give the strixhaven feat, take either quandrix or witherbloom for goodberry. Then add vhuman for magic initiate, taking goodberry. Although this is probably not needed and not all dms will allow strixhaven backgrounds, it gives 160/long rest. For a party of 5, that is stronger for 2 short rests. Plus leftovers carry over to the next day, because goodberry is balanced.
But I guess the builds give better numbers in different situations. For a big party that takes many short rests, healer is more powerful. For a small party that takes few short rests, life/goodberry is more powerful. Your build is to warlock casting as mine is to every other caster’s casting. Both our builds are likely drive their parties to the style that makes their own thing better. Though once we take into account that yours does things that aren’t healing even if the party somehow needs 100 healing in a single day at level 1, which won’t happen in a normal game, while mine doesn’t, your build is more op.
But, what about… both? The strixhaven background doesn’t conflict with vhuman healer, which doesn’t conflict with the life domain. Is healing the ONLY thing you care about? The hybrid build gives 120/day that carries over to tomorrow plus 8.5 per guy per rest. All at level 1. UNLIMITED HEALING!!!! Jokes aside, there’s the most healing a level 1 can do in a day. Not one or the other, but a bit of both. All it needs is a dm generous enough to allow the strixhaven backgrounds into a non-strixhaven campaign, and follow the slightly broken RAI, and give that many healer kits. I wish you good luck if you want to test the “hybrid uber-healer.”
Anyway, thank you for reading this essay about why either is good but both is best.
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Ctg’s blood is on the spam filter’s hands
So Vuman. Life Cleric. Healer feat. Quandrix background > Goodberry. Can cast it x3 now. 120hp GBs and 8.5HP action heals while your healing kit supplies hold out. Truly terrifying stuff indeed.
If. Life+Goodberry works. And If. Dm allows strixhaven stuff backgrounds.
Yeah, this might be best healer possible for L1. Idk that was the only thing I'd want my character capable of though to be best OP build. But if I did, you're right, this would be the way.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
No I am talking about a L1 build. Your build will grow into power at level 2 or level 3, but at level 1 it is not very powerful
'
Sure if you can apply it before a fight, but how common is that at level 1 and even if you do apply it, it is a nice substantial buff, but hardly as powerful as say sleep.
So you should heal during a fight if someone goes down and you won't be able to do that. Healing Word is perfect for this, but you can't do it because you are using a leveled spell the second round, which is when you will likely lose your first party member.
It is not unprecedented, a Barbarian in Rage has more staying power, a lot more if you buff him with shield of faith. And you are also losing action economy as you will likely lose one of your allies in round 2 (maybe you).
Only if they are alive to take them, and removing actions is deadly at first level. I agree if we are talking about a 2nd or 3rd level build, but on a 1st level build you are missing what is important and that is making sure your enemies beat you to 0 hps.
So your chance of hitting them is OVER 50% and a hit has about a 50% chance of killing them in one shot and taking an action away from them every round for the entire fight. That is on top of the fact that you can go shield of faith on your most powerful character and dramatically increase the chance she stays in the fight in addition to landing this.
Wait a turn and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 1 less round. Wait 2 turns and you have a slightly higher chance of taking it away for 2 less rounds. That is assuming you are still alive. Goblins have a base 45% chance of hitting you and 2 hits will down you, taking away all the buffs you just made (and all your future actions in the fight). They can also hide as a bonus action, so if you are playing something like LMOP where they are hiding by the side of the road they have a 60% chance of hiding effectively, which brings their chance to hit up to 70%. Assuming you have a passive perception of 13 their chance of hding successfully is 65% bringing their aggregate chance to hit up to 62%. If two of them shoot at you (which they will because you are casting/buffing), more than likely they are going to down you in the second round. Also note passive perception is not affected by the ad4 bonus.
If you have a party of 4 characters the chance your 1d4 bonus matters at all in the first round is 19% (assuming 1 attack each and you are in the middle of initiative order).
This means 81% of the time your first turn action does not change the first round of combat at all. This as opposed to a straight 55% chance of changing the round if you attack and roughly a 27% chance of killing a goblin.
Moving on to the second round; you cast bless, assuming you hang on to concentration (a big assumption). The chance of affecting an attack in the second turn is 45% (includes 2d4 on those who go after you in combat). So again you could potentially kill another goblin here.
A d4 has a straight 12.5% chance of changing the outcome on an attack - 1.25% chance of missing by 4 and changing, 2.5% chance of missing by 3 and changing, 3.75% chance of missing by 2 and changing, and a 5% chance of missing by 1 and changing. 87.5 of the time it does not matter at all.
With 3 attacks a turn (by people other than you) that is a 33%chance of changing at least 1 attack and a 67% chance of being meaningless. That assumes all of them get the bonus, however with initiative only those who go AFTER you get it that turn.
Doing this from a damage perspective, this is a straight 12.5% boost in average non-crit damage. Assuming your average party member hits for 8 damage it will be 1 point per turn for 3 other party members or 3 hit points per turn total. With a 7 hit point goiblin this means on average this extra damage is going to take 3 rounds to result in one more death. This assumes no damage lost in "overkill". I have already demonstrated that your cleric can on average do the same in 2 rounds.
That is not how math works. If each party member is doing 23% more damage, then your party as a whole is doing 23% more damage, not 69% more.
If your 3 party members were doing 4, 4, and 8 before bless you are doing 16 damage total.
If now you are doing 5 (+25%), 5 (+25%) and 10 (+25%) after bless then your your total is 20 which is 25% more than 16.
Also if it is a party of 4 it would be doing 33% more damage if you attacked instead of casting (asuming your attacks are the average middle of the pack).
Again it does not stack. +45% +45% +23%= +37% total (assuming all 3 do the same damage), not +113% and this 37% does not actually come all in until the 3rd round (unless you outright won initiative and then it is the second). As I illustrated they get +33% just for you swinging, which would be effective in the first round.
This principle is true whether they do 3 damage on average or 30 damage on average.
Please provide an example of a published level 1 encounter this will matter in. Going +10 damage on an enemy with 7hps is just plain stupid. I said in my oroginal post and in this post that this subclass gets more powerful with levels.
You won't need it ever at level 1, even if you have someone that actually has that feat.
That is an action. You can't do this if you use EB on your first turn and Bless on your second turn.
Your definition of powerful, and mine, are clearly not the same.
???? Is your argument that the only way to have a powerful L1 build is to have sleep spell? That's it, the whole build is just "cast sleep"? Ok.
I have no idea what you're talking about. 1st level characters have two spells dude. Two. For like, the whole day. Using one of your two slots for 1d4+3 HP is criminally bad. Unless you absolutely must do it to save someone. I even recognize that clutch heals might be needed from healing word and is why I included it in the build. So... ???
Are you concerned with only fighting a single group of 4 goblins for the entire day and that's that? Mission accomplished?
If you are only fighting a single combat in a day, yes, my build, which is specifically designed to allow many, many combats in a day, won't do it for you, will it.
Only if they're alive? I'm not sure what to make of your objections here, again, they seem so random. Yes, I guess if your entire party dies in a previous encounter, this character is going to have some difficulty soloing adventures designed for a party. What with it being a support/healer character. Though, the odds of finding yourself in a position where your whole party is dead seems unlikely with this build in the team, so IDK.
?? Do you play L1 barbarians in LMoP all the time and are just looking for a buffbot? And, even if you are... what is up with your insistence that Shield of Faith is better than Bless?
None of these numbers add up. IDK where you got them.
Goblins don't have a base 45% chance of hitting AC18. They have a +4 hit modifier. They need to roll a 14 or higher. That's a 35% chance to hit. They do avg 5.5 damage and this character would have 11 hp. 2 hits is likely to drop him, but not guaranteed. 3 almost certainly will.
This character would have a passive perception of 15, not 13. Again, where you're getting numbers from IDK. All your math is just wrong here about stealth and hit rates.
Those are pretty big assumptions.
Your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that this character should always and only ever do the same thing and never respond to the situation as it unfolds. That seems like a poor way to determine how effective it is. Since no one would ever do that.
??? What. Why are you casting bless twice? You say it won't help in round one and now you're saying we cast it again in round two? I don't even know man. What?
Like, this character can do exactly what you're complaining he can't do. I just don't know what this fixation is about.
True. And Shield of Faith has a 10% chance of affecting a hit, so doesn't matter 80% of the time. <-- Which for some reason is what you're advocating this character should burn their spell slot on. So IDK what your objection even is.
Big assumption, again. There are plenty of character options that allow party members to attack more than once per turn, and it would apply to them all, and also any opportunity attacks they make. Which, is actually more powerful in this fight that you'd initially expect. The goblins must choose to either disengage or Hide. Now, their ideal move is to hide, of course. but if someone is threatening them, they have a choice to make. Burn that bonus action to disengage, or don't and use it to hide. Blessed targets are far more likely to hit the goblin if they go for the hide, thus discouraging that option and punishing if they take it.
This is just false, bath math.
All wrong, again.
You don't understand, I see. I didn't say your "party was doing 69% more" I said you contributed +69%.
Here, lets use simple numbers. Lets say everyone hits for an average of 10 damage per round. Easy to follow. There are 4 of you. Your party should do 40 damage per round by attacking.
Now, if I spent my turn, instead of attacking, buffing my allies... well, they each attacked still, and I didn't. So we're going to be down, missing, 100% of my damage. <-- This number is important, keep it in mind.
Now, if the buff I gave to all my allies increases their average damage by, say, 20%. Then, each of them will do 2 extra damage, each having contributed 120% of normal. Total will be 36. MY contribution to that was the +20% +20% +20% ie 60% of my normal just attacking value.
Make sense? So, when I say it is +69% that is what I'm referring to. Assuming all characters deal samesy damage (which is already a big assumption, and a false one) then I've 'made-up-for 69% of my normal contribution immediately on the first round of casting it. But it keeps going even after the first round, without further loss from me. So, the ROI...also known as Return On Investment is at the 1.4 rounds mark. This is the point where the number of attacks made has, on average, contributed as much damage as if I would have just attacked.
Now, if you assume instead that the party members you're blessing hit at all even a little harder than you do, then the ROI happens all that much faster.
None of this means anything. Again IDK where your math is coming from or what you're trying to explain with it. It just seems wrong. Like a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening, I'm not sure where to even start unpacking the problem.
No.
No.
No idea what feat you're talking about. This comment was about how you can buff saving throws.
You seem hardstuck on this idea that this character must, under threat of law, use EB followed by Bless in the 1st two rounds of combat. No matter what combat. No matter the initiative. No matter the placement or positioning. Just an automaton that can only and must only EB round 1 then Bless round 2.
And you know what, I have no idea where you got that notion from. The whole point of this build was its flexibility. It is a healing monstrosity, that can also buff allies.
You wouldn't cast Bless or use EB in a situation where it isn't helpful. IDK why you're so fixated on that. Having the ability doesn't force you to use it when a different character action makes more sense. This character, has those options.
Need buffs? it has them in spades. Need heals? All day baby! Need damage? It can still attack and cast cantrips, can't it? It keeps the party alive and performing their best. By keeping them in the action, and making them shine in whatever they do. Your party will literally level up before this character runs out of steam for the day, because he can't, because his healing isn't spell slot based.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
@scooby4me -
I'm pretty sure the person asking this doesn't want to use these builds for evil and overshadowing other players. They're just curious what people will say, what discussions will be sparked, and how much more about D&D readers will know after having read it. Also, as a resource for people who DO want to use them.
Will everyone stop calling him "The Demogorgon"? It's his name, not a title!
nm
Probably the best fighter build for level 1
Vhuman: poisoner feat
16 strength, 14 dex, 14 con.
great weapon fighting fighting style.
greatsword+the poison coating = 2d6+3(slashing)+2d8(poison)+1d4(poison) for an average of 19 damage per round.
ignores poison resistance
and you only have to use 1 bonus action per 10 rounds to do this
lowest possible damage in a round=8
highest possible damage in a round= 35
16 ac(not the best, but still ok)
12 hp
Kevin_Chronicler
Could I ask were the values come from? I believe the poisoner feat has a 2d8 but with a save, poison damage. But where does the extra d4 come from?
Also, poisoner poison lasts for a minute <or until used> which means they'd need to BA each turn they wanna use it. And it costs 50gp to make and at L1 that creates only 2 doses.
I'm probably laughing.
It is apparently so hard to program Aberrant Mind and Clockwork Soul spell-swapping into dndbeyond they had to remake the game without it rather than implement it.
The poison is consumed on a hit, is negated by a successful DC 14 Constitution save, and has a cost that isn't negligible until tier 2 (I don't know where the 1d4 comes from, but since 2d6+3+2d8 is 19, might just be a typo). It's not a bad feat, but it's not amazing.
according to http://dnd5e.*******.com/feat:poisoner, When a creature takes damage from the coated weapon or ammunition, that creature must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or take 2d8 poison damage and become poisoned until the end of your next turn. and according to https://roll20.net basic poison does 1d4 damage
Kevin_Chronicler