Thoughts on High number of attacks in one turn

[numerek]

Rules:
All attacks must be made by one person, you don't really need game mechanics to hire an army and attack an arbitrary number of times in a round.
From pg 203:Bonus Action...you can't cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip...
Overchannel says 5th level spells not slots but again not here to debate so I will show both numbers. Also only going to apply overchannel to the spells damage dice.
Updated I believe this is compliant with errata

Highest number of attacks:
6 sorcerer(draconic fire) / 12 wizard evocation / 2 fighter
two weapon fighting, variant human, warcaster, 14 dex, 20 int, 20 cha
Have haste up,
Cast scorching ray as a 9th level - 10 attacks
action surge cast scorching ray as an 8th level spell - 9 attacks
haste attack with one weapon
bonus action attack with other weapon
Attacks:21
Damage:40d6+20+4=164

Highest number of d20s rolled:
18 wizard evocation / 2 fighter
two weapon fighting, variant human, warcaster, 18 dex, 20 int
Have haste up and foresight,
Cast scorching ray as an 8th level - 9 attacks
action surge cast scorching ray as a 7th level spell - 8 attacks
haste attack with one weapon
bonus action attack with other weapon
Attacks:19
d20s rolled: 38
Damage:40d6+10+3=153

Most Damage:
15 wizard evocation / 3 rogue assassin / 2 fighter
variant human, magic initiate (hex up to 2 targets), elemental adept, dex 14 con 16 int 20, hps 151
Targets are surprised have hex up
cast scorching ray as an 8th level spell - 9 attacks(8th overchannel if possible)
action surge Overchannel scorching ray as a 5th level spell - 6 attacks (7th overchannel if possible - 8 attacks taking 14d12=91 damage)
Attacks:15(17)
Damage: 24*6+66d6*+10=391(6 from elemental adept applied to fire damage dice)(68*6+34d6+10=537)

[Xetheral]

The mechanics of scorching ray are almost certainly going to make it the winner of highest number of attacks in a single round, and thanks to multiclass spell slot scaling it works with a large variety of builds.

That being said, I see what look like a few ambiguities/problems in the builds above:

- Sorcerer Elemental Affinity and Wizard Empowered Evocation might not apply to each bolt, since the increase in damage is "per spell" rather than "per attack". (For comparison purposes, Agonizing Blast deals its extra damage "on a hit".)
- Having Hex up on the target prior to the first round of combat seems unlikely. (And you can't use your bonus action to cast it, but if it's already eligible to change targets you could apply it.)
- Overchannel arguably doesn't affect Hex damage, because Overchannel maxes the spell's damage, rather than the attack's damage. (And you can't Overchannel Hex itself because it's not a wizard spell.)

Still, if you have a ready-to-move hex available, that leaves the 3rd listed build dealing 48*6+24*3.5+5=377 damage, which is huge, particularly since you've only used three spell slots (although the 10d12 overchannel damage isn't exactly fun).

In comparison to the Half Orc Paladin 2/Eldritch Knight 12/War Cleric 3/Assassin 3 with a greataxe (or your suggested improvement of Paladin 2/EK 13/War Cleric 2/Assassin 3), the average damage of your blaster caster is probably lower (depending on application of Twin Spell at that table), but it manages to do so with far lesser expenditure of resources. Your blaster caster also has the pros and cons of being able to attack at range: easier to invoke the nova tactically, but also easier to lose advantage on all those attacks due to the presence of a foe in melee.

[numerek]

In comparison to the Half Orc Paladin 2/Eldritch Knight 12/War Cleric 3/Assassin 3 with a greataxe (or your suggested improvement of Paladin 2/EK 13/War Cleric 2/Assassin 3), the average damage of your blaster caster is probably lower (depending on application of Twin Spell at that table), but it manages to do so with far lesser expenditure of resources. Your blaster caster also has the pros and cons of being able to attack at range: easier to invoke the nova tactically, but also easier to lose advantage on all those attacks due to the presence of a foe in melee.

I had a thought on this build, obviously it makes no sense realistically but I believe you could do your first attacks with a finesse weapon to get the 6d6 from sneak attack then drop it and draw the 2 handed weapon and finish the rest of your attacks.

[numerek]

The mechanics of scorching ray are almost certainly going to make it the winner of highest number of attacks in a single round, and thanks to multiclass spell slot scaling it works with a large variety of builds.

That being said, I see what look like a few ambiguities/problems in the builds above:

- Sorcerer Elemental Affinity and Wizard Empowered Evocation might not apply to each bolt, since the increase in damage is "per spell" rather than "per attack". (For comparison purposes, Agonizing Blast deals its extra damage "on a hit".)
- Having Hex up on the target prior to the first round of combat seems unlikely. (And you can't use your bonus action to cast it, but if it's already eligible to change targets you could apply it.)
- Overchannel arguably doesn't affect Hex damage, because Overchannel maxes the spell's damage, rather than the attack's damage. (And you can't Overchannel Hex itself because it's not a wizard spell.)

Still, if you have a ready-to-move hex available, that leaves the 3rd listed build dealing 48*6+24*3.5+5=377 damage, which is huge, particularly since you've only used three spell slots (although the 10d12 overchannel damage isn't exactly fun).

1. I see where your coming from and only time will tell if they clarify this, it seems weird to me to only apply the damage to the first or your choice of attack. Also continuing on this line of reasoning you could conclude that you would have to choose which creature in the area of effect takes the extra damage from a fireball, I understand they are different mechanics and you can make a counter-argument to this.

2. Hex has a long duration, you can cast it on a bug and squish it, and there is nothing that says retargeting hex would give away your position but yes this build doesn't do anything with its bonus action so it could start off with retargeting hex. So as long as you can pull of your assassination in an hour you should be fine, longer if your dm allows you to cast magic initiate spells using higher level slots.

3. Good call there, I was only applying elemental adept to the fire damage dice but I didn't think to only apply overchannel to the spells damage dice. This would probably make overchannel less effective than just casting higher level spells. Though at least once a day you could use a lower level slot to deal close to higher level slot damage.

So I will update my rules to include the interpretation that elemental affinity and empowered evocation apply to each damage roll of a spell. Then I will come up with a new build for most damage using the other interpretation of those abilities. I will also update the overchannel area.

Also your calculation has a slight error in it should be +10 since the spell is cast twice.

[numerek]

Most Damage(without twinned):
15 wizard evocation / 3 rogue assassin / 2 fighter
variant human, magic initiate (hex up to 2 targets), elemental adept, dex 14 con 16 int 20, hps 151
Targets are surprised have hex up
cast scorching ray as an 8th level spell - 9 attacks(8th overchannel if possible)
action surge Overchannel scorching ray as a 5th level spell - 6 attacks (7th overchannel if possible - 8 attacks taking 14d12=91 damage)
Attacks:15(17)
Damage: 24*6+66d6*+75=456(6 from elemental adept applied to fire damage dice)(68*6+34d6+85=612)

Most Damage(with twinned)
15 sorcerer (draconic fire)/ 3 rogue assassin / 2 fighter
variant human, magic initiate(hex), elemental adept, dex 16 cha 20
Targets surprised have hex up
Cast scorching ray as an 8th level - 18 attacks, 9 on hex target
action surge cast scorching ray as a 7th level spell - 16 attacks, 8 on hex target
Attacks: 34
Damage: 170d6*+170=788(23 from elemental adept applied to fire damage dice)

Since I don't want each build to have even more damage calculations I will just give the new calculations down here for with elemental affinity and empowered evocation only applying once per spell.
I'm only doing it on the damage builds because it doesn't really effect the point of the other builds. The builds themselves stay the same I couldn't come up with anything better, quicken cast scorching ray and using both actions casting eldritch blast with agonizing blast comes close but you lose more spell slots.

Most damage without twinned
damage: 24*6+66d6*+10=391(6 from elemental adept applied to fire damage dice)(68*6+34d6+10=537)

Most damage with twinned
damage: 170d6*+10=628(23 from elemental adept applied to fire damage dice)

[numerek]

the original post is updated with errata taken into account