I’ll start. I think that paladin is the best class because it is a perfect balance between magic, nonmagic and divinity. That allows for more diverse gameplay
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
if you want to join the Democracy of Pandakind, just proclaim your love for this photo and u will be an Initiate of the Panda Kingdom.
I'm pretty sure you could make an argument for any of the classes I'm going to mention but let's just say that any party that has all 4 of these is going to be very strong.
In no particular order: Eloquence Bard, Twilight Cleric, Vengence Paladin.
Then in tier all on its own would be the Chronurgy Wizard. That subclass is rediculously good.
Not looking at subclasses and just going by the base class, my vote would be Wizard. Full casters get a huge advantage in the game as players level up. Spell potency and effectiveness increases dramatically as you advance through the game. The Arcane spell list is the most powerful and diverse.
I admit that I may be conflating "Best" and "Most Powerful" and others may not agree with this equivalency.
I'm gonna go with Bard. Bards can do anything. You can have fight-bards, you can have spell-bards, you can have talk-bards, you can have skill-bards... it's quite literally the "Jack of All Trades" class. There are a few high-power spells that don't get on the Bards Spell list, but guess what... you can get them anyway. Or at least, a couple of them. The Bard excels in all aspects of gameplay. Combat? Sure, they're not as keyed into it as some of hte other classes, but they can definitely kick plenty of ass without even getting into the subclasses that focus specifically on that. Survival? On top of just natively having half-proficiency in all skills, which makes them at least somewhat adept at any challenge, they also get Song of Rest to make short rests extra potent. Diplomacy? You don't even need me to explain this one.
Chronurgy Wizards can control time itself and their features are awesome through 1-20 but are especially good 1-10 which is where most campaigns take place.
At 2nd level you get:
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
You can add your Intelligence modifier to your initiative rolls.
This means your initative is easily going to be +6 or possibly more which for a wizard is especially amazing since it means you can use things like fireball before your teammates get intermingled with the enemy, or get off important crowd control spells right at the start.
At 2nd level you also get:
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
You can magically exert limited control over the flow of time around a creature. As a reaction, after you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can force the creature to reroll. You make this decision after you see whether the roll succeeds or fails. The target must use the result of the second roll.
You can use this ability twice, and you regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This is just insane. You can make them reroll after you know the result. So you can watch the DM get a crit, roll the damage and decide you want them to reroll the attack after all, or use it to help one of your allies if they roll low.
At 6th level you get an awesome way to take enemies out of the fight or get them to drop concentration.
6th-level Chronurgy Magic feature
As an action, you can magically force a Large or smaller creature you can see within 60 feet of you to make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. Unless the saving throw is a success, the creature is encased in a field of magical energy until the end of your next turn or until the creature takes any damage. While encased in this way, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
And at level 10 you get probably one of the most amazing features in the game. It literally lets you have 2 concentration spells up at one time and even lets you cast spells instantly that would normally have a longer casting time.
10th-level Chronurgy Magic feature
When you cast a spell using a spell slot of 4th level or lower, you can condense the spell’s magic into a mote. The spell is frozen in time at the moment of casting and held within a gray bead for 1 hour. This bead is a Tiny object with AC 15 and 1 hit point, and it is immune to poison and psychic damage. When the duration ends, or if the bead is destroyed, it vanishes in a flash of light, and the spell is lost.
A creature holding the bead can use its action to release the spell within, whereupon the bead disappears. The spell uses your spell attack bonus and save DC, and the spell treats the creature who released it as the caster for all other purposes.
Once you create a bead with this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
The strongest “most” of the time is probably the wizard from a flexibility standpoint. But overall… I don’t think there is a best one in all situations. I think most of the classes have their niches which they excel in and are hard for other classes to match. and some situations one class handles fine, others may really struggle.
like early game, moon Druid. Late game. Wizards of most types. If you can’t avoid being hit and need to deal damage, barbs. If you want to buff allies, paladins/bards. If you want to heal and support, clerics. And there is overlap between classes to some degree. But not enough that one class is just… better.
I am currently running a Vengence Paladin and having a blast with him. I want to try out a Rogue(Assassin)/Bard multiclass though. I feel like some fun can be had there.
DnD has 4 legs - Exploration/Travel, Combat, Magic and social interaction. The only class that consistently gives you access to all 4 legs is the Ranger. It might not the the “best” at any only one of them but it is competitive with the best in all of them especially at tiers 1&2.
DnD has 4 legs - Exploration/Travel, Combat, Magic and social interaction. The only class that consistently gives you access to all 4 legs is the Ranger. It might not the the “best” at any only one of them but it is competitive with the best in all of them especially at tiers 1&2.
i dont know that I agree with that. Rogues can do all of that pretty consistently. I would also say rangers are NOT competitive with the best social characters, or the best magic users. some subclasses can be reasonable at combat but thats about it.
DnD has 4 legs - Exploration/Travel, Combat, Magic and social interaction. The only class that consistently gives you access to all 4 legs is the Ranger. It might not the the “best” at any only one of them but it is competitive with the best in all of them especially at tiers 1&2.
I think this makes sense mostly in regards to the fact that Ranger is pretty much the only class that innately has skills for Exploration/Travel without dipping into specific subclasses or digging up specific spells. That said... some good spell choices will cover that, but Rangers get basically nothing in regards to Social Interaction, aside from learning additional languages from their Favored Enemy feature. This is why I still say Bard is the best Class... you can take exploration/travel spells like Speak with Animals, Find the Path, Locate Object, Tiny Hut, etc., and as a Bard you totally have the option to give yourself expertise in Survival and be the best survivalist in the party even without any points put into Wisdom.
I guess that's part of the problem with the question, really... even my recommendation of the Bard being the best overall relies on the fact that you have to pick specific spells to compensate for the areas of the game that the class doesn't specifically cater to. How much do we have to say, "This class is best, BUT..." to make our case? Because there's no class that does everything, and things like the Background you choose, the spells you focus on, what subclass you take, and even what equipment you carry can drastically change things.
Exactly transmorpher, ranger is weakest in social interaction but the languages are a help there. A lot comes down to player style and interest more than outright class superiority. My point was that ranger, as a class, gives you that 4 th leg that nothing else really does without a focused subclass build.
Exactly transmorpher, ranger is weakest in social interaction but the languages are a help there. A lot comes down to player style and interest more than outright class superiority. My point was that ranger, as a class, gives you that 4 th leg that nothing else really does without a focused subclass build.
I think sorcerers easily put the lie to that. Cha and accompanying proficiencies for social interaction come with the class, they're full casters, and popular spell picks like Invisibility or Polymorph have strong applications both for combat and exploration/survival. Druids are full casters, have Wildshape and an excellent spell selection for combat and exploration, with the nature focus to enhance that survival aspect even more, and any Wis-based class can pick up Insight; they also have a couple of Charm spells to short-circuit social encounters or can provide Guidance to others who want to try actual talking first - that's better than what rangers get in the socials department. Bards do more than fine in all four of the game aspects you listed too. Not bashing the ranger class, but the idea that it's the only one consistently covering all four of combat, exploration, magic and interaction is demonstrably false.
As for "best" class: clearly whatever I want to play next. I'm picking it over all the others so it must be the best by the only standard that really matters: how likely I am to play it.
Exactly transmorpher, ranger is weakest in social interaction but the languages are a help there. A lot comes down to player style and interest more than outright class superiority. My point was that ranger, as a class, gives you that 4 th leg that nothing else really does without a focused subclass build.
I think sorcerers easily put the lie to that. Cha and accompanying proficiencies for social interaction come with the class, they're full casters, and popular spell picks like Invisibility or Polymorph have strong applications both for combat and exploration/survival. Druids are full casters, have Wildshape and an excellent spell selection for combat and exploration, with the nature focus to enhance that survival aspect even more, and any Wis-based class can pick up Insight; they also have a couple of Charm spells to short-circuit social encounters or can provide Guidance to others who want to try actual talking first - that's better than what rangers get in the socials department. Bards do more than fine in all four of the game aspects you listed too. Not bashing the ranger class, but the idea that it's the only one consistently covering all four of combat, exploration, magic and interaction is demonstrably false.
As for "best" class: clearly whatever I want to play next. I'm picking it over all the others so it must be the best by the only standard that really matters: how likely I am to play it.
I agree that the best class is whatever “I” am playing either now or next 😁. Druids for all their spell selection and wildshape don’t have the (PHB) ranger’s exploration and travel abilities tho they are definitely better in wilderness areas than anyone except a ranger or a special purpose built scout rogue. Sorcerors put the lie to what? My claim that about rangers?they are certainly better spellcasters but again while you can build a strong wilderness sorceror it’s not part of the general build it’s a specialty build. As I said in an earlier post the ranger is not the best at anything but, like a decathalete or pentathalete, they are competitive in every area and so are the best overall, which is why they are my normal go to as a starting point even if I MC out to strengthen one or another leg. There is no situation in which a decent ranger is not going to be able to help the party they are a member of.
How can this question be answered? It's a game for parties, not single PCs, and the best party probably has more than one class. In that case we can't say that any one of those classes is better than the other, because they each complement each other.
Then, should we answer according to what class is the best if you have a party of all one class?
I feel like we want to go magic user. There are some obstacles that pretty much require magic to solve, but obstacles that can be solved by brute force can usually be solved in another way by the use of magic.
Wizards are too squishy and would probably get wrecked, at least at low level. Anyway, you probably need someone with healing.
Cleric. It's probably cleric. One of the domains that gets heavy armor proficiency so you can be tanky. Clerics do pretty amazing on offense too. Guiding Bolt is pretty strong damage, and if you just stand in a circle throwing Guiding Bolts, you're all going to have advantage. But it's the multi-round duration spells that really shine. Spirit Guardians is potentially damaging every enemy that's fighting you in melee once per party member each round. And you can have Spiritual Weapon and Guardian of Faith up at the same time, since they're not concentration.
Probably Nature Cleric. That gives you some exploration skills and access to a variety of damage type options other than radiant.
In this thread we will a) vote on the best class and explain why,
b) have a small and controlled argument about said class!
Rules:
no being toxic
no personal questions
no explicit anger
have fun!
-DMX666
I’ll start.
I think that paladin is the best class because it is a perfect balance between magic, nonmagic and divinity. That allows for more diverse gameplay
I'm pretty sure you could make an argument for any of the classes I'm going to mention but let's just say that any party that has all 4 of these is going to be very strong.
In no particular order: Eloquence Bard, Twilight Cleric, Vengence Paladin.
Then in tier all on its own would be the Chronurgy Wizard. That subclass is rediculously good.
I haven't heard of the last one. explain?
Not looking at subclasses and just going by the base class, my vote would be Wizard. Full casters get a huge advantage in the game as players level up. Spell potency and effectiveness increases dramatically as you advance through the game. The Arcane spell list is the most powerful and diverse.
I admit that I may be conflating "Best" and "Most Powerful" and others may not agree with this equivalency.
I'm gonna go with Bard. Bards can do anything. You can have fight-bards, you can have spell-bards, you can have talk-bards, you can have skill-bards... it's quite literally the "Jack of All Trades" class. There are a few high-power spells that don't get on the Bards Spell list, but guess what... you can get them anyway. Or at least, a couple of them. The Bard excels in all aspects of gameplay. Combat? Sure, they're not as keyed into it as some of hte other classes, but they can definitely kick plenty of ass without even getting into the subclasses that focus specifically on that. Survival? On top of just natively having half-proficiency in all skills, which makes them at least somewhat adept at any challenge, they also get Song of Rest to make short rests extra potent. Diplomacy? You don't even need me to explain this one.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Chronurgy Wizards can control time itself and their features are awesome through 1-20 but are especially good 1-10 which is where most campaigns take place.
At 2nd level you get:
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
You can add your Intelligence modifier to your initiative rolls.
This means your initative is easily going to be +6 or possibly more which for a wizard is especially amazing since it means you can use things like fireball before your teammates get intermingled with the enemy, or get off important crowd control spells right at the start.
At 2nd level you also get:
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
You can magically exert limited control over the flow of time around a creature. As a reaction, after you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can force the creature to reroll. You make this decision after you see whether the roll succeeds or fails. The target must use the result of the second roll.
You can use this ability twice, and you regain any expended uses when you finish a long rest.
This is just insane. You can make them reroll after you know the result. So you can watch the DM get a crit, roll the damage and decide you want them to reroll the attack after all, or use it to help one of your allies if they roll low.
At 6th level you get an awesome way to take enemies out of the fight or get them to drop concentration.
6th-level Chronurgy Magic feature
As an action, you can magically force a Large or smaller creature you can see within 60 feet of you to make a Constitution saving throw against your spell save DC. Unless the saving throw is a success, the creature is encased in a field of magical energy until the end of your next turn or until the creature takes any damage. While encased in this way, the creature is incapacitated and has a speed of 0.
You can use this feature a number of times equal to your Intelligence modifier (a minimum of once). You regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
And at level 10 you get probably one of the most amazing features in the game. It literally lets you have 2 concentration spells up at one time and even lets you cast spells instantly that would normally have a longer casting time.
10th-level Chronurgy Magic feature
When you cast a spell using a spell slot of 4th level or lower, you can condense the spell’s magic into a mote. The spell is frozen in time at the moment of casting and held within a gray bead for 1 hour. This bead is a Tiny object with AC 15 and 1 hit point, and it is immune to poison and psychic damage. When the duration ends, or if the bead is destroyed, it vanishes in a flash of light, and the spell is lost.
A creature holding the bead can use its action to release the spell within, whereupon the bead disappears. The spell uses your spell attack bonus and save DC, and the spell treats the creature who released it as the caster for all other purposes.
Once you create a bead with this feature, you can’t do so again until you finish a short or long rest.
The strongest “most” of the time is probably the wizard from a flexibility standpoint. But overall… I don’t think there is a best one in all situations. I think most of the classes have their niches which they excel in and are hard for other classes to match. and some situations one class handles fine, others may really struggle.
like early game, moon Druid. Late game. Wizards of most types. If you can’t avoid being hit and need to deal damage, barbs. If you want to buff allies, paladins/bards. If you want to heal and support, clerics. And there is overlap between classes to some degree. But not enough that one class is just… better.
I am currently running a Vengence Paladin and having a blast with him. I want to try out a Rogue(Assassin)/Bard multiclass though. I feel like some fun can be had there.
To me, chronurgy wizard sounds the best for damage and combat and veng paladin for vampires and abyss, etc. thanks for posting! 😈
DnD has 4 legs - Exploration/Travel, Combat, Magic and social interaction. The only class that consistently gives you access to all 4 legs is the Ranger. It might not the the “best” at any only one of them but it is competitive with the best in all of them especially at tiers 1&2.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
i dont know that I agree with that. Rogues can do all of that pretty consistently. I would also say rangers are NOT competitive with the best social characters, or the best magic users. some subclasses can be reasonable at combat but thats about it.
I think this makes sense mostly in regards to the fact that Ranger is pretty much the only class that innately has skills for Exploration/Travel without dipping into specific subclasses or digging up specific spells. That said... some good spell choices will cover that, but Rangers get basically nothing in regards to Social Interaction, aside from learning additional languages from their Favored Enemy feature. This is why I still say Bard is the best Class... you can take exploration/travel spells like Speak with Animals, Find the Path, Locate Object, Tiny Hut, etc., and as a Bard you totally have the option to give yourself expertise in Survival and be the best survivalist in the party even without any points put into Wisdom.
I guess that's part of the problem with the question, really... even my recommendation of the Bard being the best overall relies on the fact that you have to pick specific spells to compensate for the areas of the game that the class doesn't specifically cater to. How much do we have to say, "This class is best, BUT..." to make our case? Because there's no class that does everything, and things like the Background you choose, the spells you focus on, what subclass you take, and even what equipment you carry can drastically change things.
Watch Crits for Breakfast, an adults-only RP-Heavy Roll20 Livestream at twitch.tv/afterdisbooty
And now you too can play with the amazing art and assets we use in Roll20 for our campaign at Hazel's Emporium
Exactly transmorpher, ranger is weakest in social interaction but the languages are a help there. A lot comes down to player style and interest more than outright class superiority. My point was that ranger, as a class, gives you that 4 th leg that nothing else really does without a focused subclass build.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
I think druid would be the bast class - they're most likely able to help deal with the fibrous material from a plant.
I think sorcerers easily put the lie to that. Cha and accompanying proficiencies for social interaction come with the class, they're full casters, and popular spell picks like Invisibility or Polymorph have strong applications both for combat and exploration/survival. Druids are full casters, have Wildshape and an excellent spell selection for combat and exploration, with the nature focus to enhance that survival aspect even more, and any Wis-based class can pick up Insight; they also have a couple of Charm spells to short-circuit social encounters or can provide Guidance to others who want to try actual talking first - that's better than what rangers get in the socials department. Bards do more than fine in all four of the game aspects you listed too. Not bashing the ranger class, but the idea that it's the only one consistently covering all four of combat, exploration, magic and interaction is demonstrably false.
As for "best" class: clearly whatever I want to play next. I'm picking it over all the others so it must be the best by the only standard that really matters: how likely I am to play it.
Want to start playing but don't have anyone to play with? You can try these options: [link].
Any class is the Bast class as long as it's a Tabaxi.
I agree that the best class is whatever “I” am playing either now or next 😁. Druids for all their spell selection and wildshape don’t have the (PHB) ranger’s exploration and travel abilities tho they are definitely better in wilderness areas than anyone except a ranger or a special purpose built scout rogue. Sorcerors put the lie to what? My claim that about rangers?they are certainly better spellcasters but again while you can build a strong wilderness sorceror it’s not part of the general build it’s a specialty build. As I said in an earlier post the ranger is not the best at anything but, like a decathalete or pentathalete, they are competitive in every area and so are the best overall, which is why they are my normal go to as a starting point even if I MC out to strengthen one or another leg. There is no situation in which a decent ranger is not going to be able to help the party they are a member of.
Wisea$$ DM and Player since 1979.
How can this question be answered? It's a game for parties, not single PCs, and the best party probably has more than one class. In that case we can't say that any one of those classes is better than the other, because they each complement each other.
Then, should we answer according to what class is the best if you have a party of all one class?
I feel like we want to go magic user. There are some obstacles that pretty much require magic to solve, but obstacles that can be solved by brute force can usually be solved in another way by the use of magic.
Wizards are too squishy and would probably get wrecked, at least at low level. Anyway, you probably need someone with healing.
Cleric. It's probably cleric. One of the domains that gets heavy armor proficiency so you can be tanky. Clerics do pretty amazing on offense too. Guiding Bolt is pretty strong damage, and if you just stand in a circle throwing Guiding Bolts, you're all going to have advantage. But it's the multi-round duration spells that really shine. Spirit Guardians is potentially damaging every enemy that's fighting you in melee once per party member each round. And you can have Spiritual Weapon and Guardian of Faith up at the same time, since they're not concentration.
Probably Nature Cleric. That gives you some exploration skills and access to a variety of damage type options other than radiant.
Tabaxi may not be the best class, but they have the best claws.