Best Martial in the Game Contest Revised!(Please move your builds to this post.)

[ImSAMazing]

I have made a new thread because some rules have changed and it already had 3 pages of posts.
Allright guys,

it's time for a contest to make the best lvl 17 martial in the game! If you want to participate, read the rules below!

Before you open the spoiler, if you are going to participate leave a reply saying you are going to participate, and when you made the sheet you edit the reply.





The ability scores are built using point buy(27 points)
All races of UA, EE, PHB and DMG are allowed except Aarakockra
All official classes are allowed except the Mystic
The character must be lvl 17 in total
Normal HP(max hp at lvl 1 and average hp + con mod for each level above)
Multiclassing is allowed
The character must be using a weapon as main damage source
Only 1 build / account
11 september this year, the winner will be picked. You can't participate after 10 september.
You may use the same classes/races combination as another participator, but you may not plagiarize!
The character sheet is made using the site Myth-Weavers (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheets/).
Feats are allowed
The character has 2 uncommon magic items and starts with 2000gp starting money. Magic items can't be bought.
Rogue's always have sneakattack on. The Assasinate Ability of the Assassin Archetype will mean a critical hit on the first round.
Classes with spell slots are allowed, but you may only use the spell slots for everything except spells(Smiting, Primeval Awareness)
Brooch of Shielding & Potion of Force Resistance aren't allowed.








Your grade will be based on the following:

You will be fighting in a arena that is 60' in diameter. The 1 enemy you will be fighting has 40' base speed(walking), and has 2 melee attacks(unarmed strikes) OR 2 ranged attacks(bullets of pure Force). Each attack has +10 to hit and deals 15 Force damage on a hit. The creature has 18 in all ability scores and proficiency in Constitution, Wisdom and Dextery Saves. The enemy is a large creature made of pure magical Force. It's proficiency bonus is +6. The more damage you do before it kills you, the higher your grade.

WIP Guys!


The person with the highest grade can place in his signature:
I am the best martial optimizer in 5th edition D&D on the GiantITP Forum.



If you want to participate, make the character sheet using Mythweavers and leave the link as a reply in a spoiler called "Martial Build" without quotations. If you don't do that, you are expelled from the contest. You may also put all the relevant information in the spoiler instead of using sheet-builder like Mythweavers.

[CNagy]

Still in this, going to post up a sheet sometime.

Questions, though: our opponent is dealing Force damage and we get 2 uncommon magic items. Am I correct in assuming the Brooch of Shielding is not available? Ditto for the Potion of Force Resistance?

[Maxilian]

I would love to participate but i have some questions:

-What's the speed of the creature?

-What types of speed the target have? (can it fly? hover? swim? etc...)

[ImSAMazing]

You will be fighting in a arena that is 60' in diameter. The enemy has 40' base speed(walking), and has 2 melee attacks OR 2 ranged attacks. Each attack has +10 to hit and deals 15 Force damage on a hit. The creature has 18 in all ability scores and proficiency in Constitution, Wisdom and Dextery Saves. The enemy is a large creature made of pure magical Force.

[ImSAMazing]

Still in this, going to post up a sheet sometime.

Questions, though: our opponent is dealing Force damage and we get 2 uncommon magic items. Am I correct in assuming the Brooch of Shielding is not available? Ditto for the Potion of Force Resistance?

Brooch of Shielding & Potion of Force Resistance are indeed not available. Every other uncommon item is(Except Bag of Tricks because of it's OP powers).

[Maxilian]

You will be fighting in a arena that is 60' in diameter. The enemy has 40' base speed(walking), and has 2 melee attacks OR 2 ranged attacks. Each attack has +10 to hit and deals 15 Force damage on a hit. The creature has 18 in all ability scores and proficiency in Constitution, Wisdom and Dextery Saves. The enemy is a large creature made of pure magical Force.

So a totally closed place? i guess that it doesn't need to breath, but how are its attacks made? (weapon attacks, natural weapon, unarmed, etc...)

[Giant2005]

Classes with spell slots are not allowed, so are archetypes with spell slots.

That right there is a pretty crappy rule. Why not just rule it that spell slots can't be used for anything other than smiting? Seems a whole lot fairer than just straight up banning classes like the Ranger.
Although saying the Paladin can use their spell slots and no-one else can already askews the results somewhat by giving a single class such a huge advantage.

[ImSAMazing]

That right there is a pretty crappy rule. Why not just rule it that spell slots can't be used for anything other than smiting? Seems a whole lot fairer than just straight up banning classes like the Ranger.
Although saying the Paladin can use their spell slots and no-one else can already askews the results somewhat by giving a single class such a huge advantage.

True. Allright, I'll change the rule. Spell slots may not be used for spells, only for features that use them(Smiting, that Ranger sense feature).

[Giant2005]

True. Allright, I'll change the rule. Spell slots may not be used for spells, only for features that use them(Smiting, that Ranger sense feature).

So the Paladin can only use his class smites, not the smite spells?

[ImSAMazing]

So the Paladin can only use his class smites, not the smite spells?

Yes. Spell slots may not be used for spells.

[ImSAMazing]

So a totally closed place? i guess that it doesn't need to breath, but how are its attacks made? (weapon attacks, natural weapon, unarmed, etc...)

It doesn't need to breath, it is a creature made of pure magical Force. It's melee attacks are unarmed strikes, it's ranged attacks are bullets of pure Force.

[Naanomi]

How tactical is it? For example... If necessary will it reserve actions to hit me if I am popping out of the underground to hit it and then retreating and so on? Does it make attacks of opportunity if able?

Also are its ranged attacks 'weapon attacks' for the purpose of the monk ability: deflect missiles?

[ImSAMazing]

How tactical is it? For example... If necessary will it reserve actions to hit me if I am popping out of the underground to hit it and then retreating and so on? Does it make attacks of opportunity if able?

Also are its ranged attacks 'weapon attacks' for the purpose of the monk ability: deflect missiles?

It has 18 intelligence, so it is really smart. So yes, he ready's actions. His attacks count as non-weapon attacks.

[Giant2005]

The damage values below assumed the 18 AC that was listed in the original thread. This new one doesn't seem to have an AC value listed.

Totem Barbarian 5, Moon Druid 12
Race: Stout Halfling
Stats: Str: 13, Dex: 15 (+2 Racial, +3 ASI = 20), Con: 14 (+1 Racial, +3 ASI = 18), Int: 9, Wis: 13, Cha: 8
Feats: Savage Attacker
Armament: Rapier, Shield, Cloak of Protection, Insignia of Claws
AC: 22 (13 in Elephant form)
HP: 168 (An effective 381.5 in Elephant form at the expense of 17 bonus actions)

The creature inflicts an average of 12.15 damage to the Raging Elephant per round when it attacks with disadvantage, inflicting 364.5 damage to the Elephant before the 30 rounds of rage run out.

Turn 1: Turn into Elephant and Rage
Turn 2: Grapple and Knockdown
Turns 3-31: Beat on the critter with 58 attacks and 14 bonus action attacks (29 -1 for second Wildshape and -14 for blowing all but 3 level 1 spell slots). Attack Damage: 1123.8225, Bonus Attack Damage: 310.6425 for a total of: 1434.465 damage. Although that damage doesn't factor in Savage Attacker or the Halfling's Lucky Ability (Neither of which I am inclined to do the math for - truth be told I wouldn't even know how to work out the average of an attack with Savage Attacker). The build would also be able to inflict some more relatively minor damage after Rage has run out in both Elephant and Halfling forms but that damage is inconsequential enough that I didn't bother calculating it either.

[Naanomi]

Hrm I wonder how a build riding a burrowing animal companion... Thus limiting the creature to one reaction attack a round... And using defensive duelist while maximizing AC (maybe while dodging to apply disadvantage)... Could negate all except critical hits while still getting 1 attack/round?

[ImSAMazing]

The damage values below assumed the 18 AC that was listed in the original thread. This new one doesn't seem to have an AC value listed.

Totem Barbarian 5, Moon Druid 12
Race: Stout Halfling
Stats: Str: 13, Dex: 15 (+2 Racial, +3 ASI = 20), Con: 14 (+1 Racial, +3 ASI = 18), Int: 9, Wis: 13, Cha: 8
Feats: Savage Attacker
Armament: Rapier, Shield, Cloak of Protection, Insignia of Claws
AC: 22 (13 in Elephant form)
HP: 168 (An effective 381.5 in Elephant form at the expense of 17 bonus actions)

The creature inflicts an average of 12.15 damage to the Raging Elephant per round when it attacks with disadvantage, inflicting 364.5 damage to the Elephant before the 30 rounds of rage run out.

Turn 1: Turn into Elephant and Rage
Turn 2: Grapple and Knockdown
Turns 3-31: Beat on the critter with 58 attacks and 14 bonus action attacks (29 -1 for second Wildshape and -14 for blowing all but 3 level 1 spell slots). Attack Damage: 1123.8225, Bonus Attack Damage: 310.6425 for a total of: 1434.465 damage. Although that damage doesn't factor in Savage Attacker or the Halfling's Lucky Ability (Neither of which I am inclined to do the math for - truth be told I wouldn't even know how to work out the average of an attack with Savage Attacker). The build would also be able to inflict some more relatively minor damage after Rage has run out in both Elephant and Halfling forms but that damage is inconsequential enough that I didn't bother calculating it either.

Approved if you tell me what burning all except 3 lvl 1 slots means. Spellcasting is not allowed.

[ImSAMazing]

Hrm I wonder how a build riding a burrowing animal companion... Thus limiting the creature to one reaction attack a round... And using defensive duelist while maximizing AC (maybe while dodging to apply disadvantage)... Could negate all except critical hits while still getting 1 attack/round?
Dont post idea's, post a build. Other people may " use your build for inspiration"

[Giant2005]

Approved if you tell me what burning all except 3 lvl 1 slots means. Spellcasting is not allowed.

It is a Moon Druid feature. When Wildshaped they can burn a spell slot to heal themselves 1D8 * slotlevel HP.

[ImSAMazing]

It is a Moon Druid feature. When Wildshaped they can burn a spell slot to heal themselves 1D8 * slotlevel HP.

Approved in that case.

[Naanomi]

Dont post idea's, post a build. Other people may " use your build for inspiration"
I'm not going to work it out, and hope someone else will explore it since I don't have the time, I'm sticking with my strength rogue that isn't 'tricky' and probably won't win but will be fun

[Giant2005]

Hrm I wonder how a build riding a burrowing animal companion... Thus limiting the creature to one reaction attack a round... And using defensive duelist while maximizing AC (maybe while dodging to apply disadvantage)... Could negate all except critical hits while still getting 1 attack/round?

I'm not so sure it works.
The only reason why players don't get their Extra Attack ability on Readied Attacks is because the Extra Attack ability specifically restricts itself to Attack Actions that occur on your turn. A Monster's Multiattack ability doesn't have that same restriction.

[ImSAMazing]

I'm not going to work it out, and hope someone else will explore it since I don't have the time, I'm sticking with my strength rogue that isn't 'tricky' and probably won't win but will be fun

May the damage be with you.

[Jamesps]

Just for kicks I made a totally nonmagical variant (except with the magic items):

(Edit: Changed to reflect that he had illegal magic items in the first build)


Class: Barbarian 1/ Fighter Champion 11/Rogue (Whatever) 5
Race: Variant Human
Relevant Stats: Strength 14, Con 20, Dex 20, AC 22, hp 188
Skills: Athletics (with expertise) +14, it will be a loosing proposition for opponent to sacrifice attacks to try to escape.
Equipment: Rapier+1, Cloak of Protection. 40 healing potions.
Relevant Feats and Abilities: Sneak Attack 3d6, Rage 2/day, Critical 19-20, Mariner Fighting Style, Defensive Duelist feat. Duelist Style.

Build from 1st level: Take level 1 as Barbarian for a couple extra hp and take the feat Defensive Duelist. Starting with 14 strength, 16 con and 16 dex. Increase dex with the first two Attribute increases (level 4 and 6 Champion) then increase Con (lvl 8 champion, lvl 4 rogue).

Battle Tactics:
Round 1: Go first (probably). Rage for advantage on strength checks, move up and use the first attack to shove opponent to the ground, then grapple them.
Round 2: Odds of escaping per attack they sacrifice are 0.0875. This is a losing proposition so likely they'll just attack. You have advantage to attack (sneak attack) they have disadvantage to hit you. Use defensive duelist and the fact that they are at disadvantage on a difficult roll to avoid most of their damage. Use uncanny dodge every attack that hits if you still have a reaction left.

Attack three times per round for 3d8+24 (37.5) with a .9375 chance of hitting each time. The odds of missing a sneak attack are negligible (eliminated through rounding to a fourth decimal point) so assume you automatically do 10.5 damage each round. Crit damage averages at 13.5*0.19 per round, or 2.565. Total damage is 48.2 per round.


Round Much later: Use second wind to replenish hp. Average damage taken per round is 0.4406.

This strategy should keep the fight going for about 464 rounds before you need to dip into your healing potions (that includes an average roll for second wind). Healing potions cost 1 round each and give you 15.89 rounds worth of damage in return, for a net gain of 14.89 rounds. You have forty of them, so add 595 rounds to the 464 for a total of 1059 (rounding off).

Total damage is (1059) * ~48.2 = 51,043.8 damage for a fight that lasts 1.83 hours or thereabouts.


This build relies solely on nonmagical abilities. Granted, over half the damage output comes from the four bandoliers of healing potions, but you should ask your GM to reflavor those as energy drinks. HPs are abstract anyways.

Note: This build was modified to account for bracers of defense being rare. A +1 rapier was used instead. I imagine there's probably something more efficient or clever, but I don't have access to a DMG.

[ImSAMazing]

Just for kicks I made a totally nonmagical variant (except with the magic items):


Class: Barbarian 1/ Fighter Champion 5/Rogue (Whatever) 11
Race: Variant Human
Relevant Stats: Strength 14, Con 20, Dex 20, AC 24, hp 183
Skills: Athletics (with expertise) +14, can't roll below 10 (minimum roll 24 is equal to opponent's max roll)
Equipment: Rapier, Bracers of Defense, Ring of Protection? (Don't have my DMG, is this an uncommon item?). 39 healing potions.
Relevant Feats and Abilities: Sneak Attack 6d6, Rage 2/day, Critical 19-20, Mariner Fighting Style, Defensive Duelist feat.

Build from 1st level: Take level 1 as Barbarian for a couple extra hp and take the feat Defensive Duelist. Starting with 14 strength, 16 con and 16 dex. Increase dex with the first two Attribute increases (level 4 and 8 Rogue) then increase Con (lvl 10 rogue, lvl 4 champion).

Battle Tactics:
Round 1: Go first (probably). Rage for advantage on strength checks, move up and use the first attack to shove opponent to the ground, then grapple them.
Round 2: They can't escape. You have advantage to attack (sneak attack) they have disadvantage to hit you. Use defensive duelist and the fact that they are at disadvantage on a difficult roll to avoid most of their damage. Use uncanny dodge instead of duelist if they crit you.

Attack twice per round for 2d8+6d6+10 with a not insignificant chance to crit each round (which may add sneak attack dice!). You only miss 9% of the time, which is roughly cancelled out by crits meaning over the long haul you'll be doing about 40 dmg/round.

Don't worry about them escaping! Once you grapple them they quite literally can't change the situation as the best they can do is tie your athletics roll.

Round Much later: Use second wind to replenish hp. Average damage taken per round is 0.168.

This strategy should keep the fight going for about 1151 rounds before you need to dip into your healing potions (that includes an average roll for second wind). Healing potions will slightly slow your damage, but give you another 1625 rounds. Of which you'd be able to use 1585 rounds for attacking.

Total damage is (1151+1585) * ~40 = 109,440 damage for a fight that lasts 4.56 hours or thereabouts.


This build relies solely on nonmagical abilities. Granted, over half the damage output comes from the four bandoliers of healing potions, but you should ask your GM to reflavor those as energy drinks. HPs are abstract anyways.

Approved. Looks cool.

[Naanomi]

Strange tactic question:
If pinned in place, prevented from moving or turning around, could the force-bot still effectively attack things behind it?

[ImSAMazing]

Strange tactic question:
If pinned in place, prevented from moving or turning around, could the force-bot still effectively attack things behind it?

Great question. But yes, with disadvantage.

[Human Paragon 3]

So ranger can't cast swift quiver? That doesn't seem fair either, as his DPR depends on spells.

I think you should allow classes with spell levels <5.

[ImSAMazing]

So ranger can't cast swift quiver? That doesn't seem fair either, as his DPR depends on spells.

I think you should allow classes with spell levels <5.

That isnt a martial. This is a martial contest, not a martial/magic hybrid. You may use spell-less ranger.

[ImSAMazing]

5 days to go!

[JNAProductions]

You know, this really should test for hoards too. Currently it's single target management only. What about dealing with larger groups of weaker enemies?

[ImSAMazing]

You know, this really should test for hoards too. Currently it's single target management only. What about dealing with larger groups of weaker enemies?

That will be another contest. I will be hosting a lot of them.

[Naanomi]

Mythweavers isn't getting along with my phone so... Only posting parts of build that matter for the challenge

Fighter 6 (battlemaster)/Rogue (assassin)11
Variant human
Str 20/Dex 13/Con 20
Proficiency and expertise in athletics
Duelist fighting style
Feats: shield mastery, toughness
Combat Maneuvers: Riposte
AC: 20
HP: 195

Equipment: rapier +1, full plate, shield, immovable rod

Combat length:
-with disadvantage on its attacks, I am hit with a normal hit 24.75% of attacks for 16 damage, and critically hit for ?30 damage? .0025% of attacks.
-I take on average 3.7875 damage per attack
-including 15 HP from second wind, I will stay in fighting shape through 55 attacks, which is 27 rounds of combat I will be active

Offense:
-swinging at advantage, I swing at +12 to hit: hitting normally 84% of the time for 7.5, and critting 9.75% of the time for 16 damage
-my first hit each round will be a sneak attack, dealing 21 additional damage; 42 damage in a critical hit

+Round 1: move behind target, use bonus action to shove it over (I will automatically succeed) and use my main action to activate the immovable rod in its back, pinning it to the ground face down. Action Surge for two automatic critical hits, doing an average of 69.375 damage

+Between Rounds: respond using reaction to riposte, possible sneak attack and with an additional 4.5 damage on a normal hit, 9 on a critical hit 34.2525 each hit, five times total for 171.2625 average damage

+Rounds 2-27: attack twice each round, dealing 39.30426875 damage per round on average, a total of 1,021.91099 damage

a total average damage of 1,262.5484875

[Ruslan]

My build:
Human Fighter (Champion) 12 / Rogue 5 (Assassin)

Str 20, Dex 13, Con 20, Int 8, Wis 8, Cha 8

Feats: Defensive Duelist, Tough

Fighting Styles: Defense, Dueling

Hit points: 10 + 11x6 (fighter) + 5x5 (Rogue) + 17x5 (Con) + 17x2 (Tough) = 220

AC 22 (Shield+1, Full Plate, Fighting Style)

I am hit on 12+ (45% of the time). With Defensive Duelist, one hit (that hits AC 22 but not AC 28) can be negated per round.

Odds of not being hit at all: 63.25%
Odds of being hit once: 34.5%
Odds of being hit twice: 2.25% (in which case Uncanny Dodge is used to halve one instance of damage)

Total damage per round: 0.0225 x (15+7) + 0.345 x 15 = 5.67

Total: receiving 5.67 damage per round.
I can use Second Wind once, therefore effectively I have 220+1d10+12 = 237 hit points.

237 / 5.67 = 41.8

It'll take 42 rounds to kill me. How much damage can I do in 43 rounds of actions? (extra action w/Action Surge)?

3 attacks per round with Rapier+1 at +12 vs. AC 18 means hitting on 6+ (10% chance of critical hit, 65% chance of regular hit)
Damage is 1d8+8 (regular hit 12.5, critical hit 17) plus 3d6 Sneak Attack once per round.

3 x (17x0.1 + 12.5x0.65) + 10.5 = 39.975 per round, or 1718.925 damage

The Assassin levels mean first round damage is a bit larger, but I can't be bothered to calculate it. Let's say, 1750 damage.

[ImSAMazing]

Both are approved. Great work.

[AvatarVecna]

What's the range increment on those force bullets?

[Naanomi]

What is the arena like... How high is its ceiling? What is the ground made of?

[Kane0]

Curious, but also at work so i cant do it myself, how would a near-pure champion fare? That HP regen would be very handy.

Edit: Will post build later.

[AvatarVecna]

Curious, but also at work so i cant do it myself, how would a near-pure champion fare? That HP regen would be very handy.

That HP regen is also the level 18 ability; this contest is for 17th level builds.

EDIT: Incidentally, Quivering Palm has also been ruled as dealing 100 damage on a failed save, so that's not a great route either.

[ImSAMazing]

What's the range increment on those force bullets?
120'

What is the arena like... How high is its ceiling? What is the ground made of?
Adamantine

Curious, but also at work so i cant do it myself, how would a near-pure champion fare? That HP regen would be very handy.

Edit: Will post build later.
lvl 17 contest.


That HP regen is also the level 18 ability; this contest is for 17th level builds.

EDIT: Incidentally, Quivering Palm has also been ruled as dealing 100 damage on a failed save, so that's not a great route either.

True.

[AvatarVecna]

Build incoming...maybe.

[Kane0]

lvl 17 contest.


So was that on purpose then?

[AvatarVecna]

Race: Variant Human
Class: Monk (Open Hand) 9/Fighter (Champion) 7/Rogue 1
Stats (Lvl 1): Str 12/Dex 16/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 16/Cha 8
Stats (Lvl 17): Str 12/Dex 20/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 18/Cha 8
AC: 19
HP: 104
Important Skills: Athletics +13 (proficient and expertise)
Human Feat: Mobile
Monk 4 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Monk 8 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Fighter 4 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Fighter 6 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Items: Immovable Rod, Potion of Growth

Before combat begins, drink "Potion of Growth"; this gives the effects of the "Enlarge" spell for 1d4 hours, no concentration required. The three benefits to this are advantage on Str-based ability checks, advantage on Str-based saves, and +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. Let's assume the average running time of 2.5 hours, since there's virtually no chance of this fight lasting longer than that.

Okay, so my initiative is +8, theirs is +4. This means I have a 70% chance of going first once combat actually starts. Assuming he goes first (likely enough to consider), he'll get two attacks, with no advantage/disadvantage, against my AC 20. Taking Deflect Arrows into account, they deal a total of a total average of 5.71125 during their turn. Taking into account the odds of this happening at all (based on who goes first), that changes the average to 1.713375; let's round it up to 2 for the sake of simplicity.

My turn (or maybe it already was). I use my Action to Shove them (in an attempt to knock them prone). With my +13 Athletics vs their +4 Athletics/Acrobatics roll (and with me having advantage on Str-based ability checks from the Potion of Growth), there is a 93.675% that they're prone at this point. Next, I spend a ki point to activate Flurry of Blows; if they're prone (93.675% chance), this deals an average of 30.1365 (depending on where the SA die ends up); if they're not prone, this deals an average of 18.8, and lets me attach Dex save vs. trip to whichever attacks hit. They have a 65% chance of making this save, assuming I even call for a save; with my level of accuracy, that means that they have a 72% chance of not being tripped by that FoB attack; if, at this point, they are prone, I use my Action Surge to deploy my Immovable Rod in keeping them prone, and then use the movement part of my action to move just out of melee range; this doesn't provoke an AoO because I have the Mobile feat and have made an attack this round. With everything added up, this enemy has taken an average of 29.41946638 damage, and has a 96.6635625% chance of being prone, close enough to a guarantee to call it one for the purposes of this contest.

Now, it's their turn. They can only attack at ranged, and they have disadvantage on attack rolls; if their attack hits, I use Deflect Arrows to either completely negate it (1d10+14 vs 15 on a hit), or reduce it (1d10+14 vs 30 on a crit). Everything taken together, the enemy deals an average of 1.69005 damage to me every round. With average HP, Second Wind, Wholeness of Body, and 40 potions, I have effectively 423 HP; taking into account the average 2 damage dealt on the first turn, this means that he kills me in 250.288453...let's call it 250 rounds.

So! I get 250 rounds with which to attack this prone chump; with Wholeness of Body being an action, and Second Wind being a bonus action, my self-healing stuff takes up 1 turn, and each potion takes up another 1, leaving me with 209 more with which to attack. Every turn, I use my action to re-enter melee, attack twice, use my bonus action MA attack to attack a third time, and use the rest of my movement to move back away, going back to just outside melee range, and forcing him to use the deflect-able ranged attack (again, with Mobile preventing any AoOs). Sometimes, I will employ my Flurry of Blows ability, but I can't do this forever. On a round where I don't use FoB, I deal an average of 43.137685 damage to the enemy; on a round where I use FoB, the average rises to 56.11049165 damage. With 8 remaining ki points, that means 8 rounds of FoB and 201 rounds of non-FoB.After totaling everything up, my total, overall damage to the enemy when they finally kill me is...

*drum roll*

9148.978085

...it's not as good as the grapple-based build, which has overall better defenses, but I didn't want to just totally rip it off. Of course, I'm also not sure how viable drinking potions is in a grapple, and while I can guarantee that my numbers are as accurate as necessary, I haven't personally run the numbers for the grapple build; that said, I'm sure those numbers are in the right ballpark, assuming potions can be used during a grapple.In making this, and consulting the existing builds, I've come across a couple potentially useful ideas that other builds, both here and for other things, can make sure of:

1. Thief Rogue can Use an Object (like a potion) as a bonus action. If the Grapple Build went Thief Rogue instead of Assassin Rogue, they'd lose out on the surprise round crits, but they wouldn't have to spend 40 actions chugging Red Bull (spending 40 bonus actions instead).

2. The Potion of Growth is potentially incredibly useful in long-term combat, although still not as much as some other uncommon items (and certainly not as useful as some rare ones).

3. The two big limiting factors on this contest (that don't seem to really make sense for a full-on optimization contest) are the magic item limit (two uncommon, nothing else), and even more bizarrely the level limit; if we're trying to optimize, why not go all the way to 20? That makes some builds much more viable, particularly something like Champion 18/X 2.

4. A Monk with the Mobile feat is not as much of an ******* as a luchador barbarian, but they're probably second place.

5. This wasn't discovered here, but in the previous thread: Bestow Curse is ridiculous, especially when you start stacking the higher-level BCs together.

6. You know what else is obnoxious at the high levels? Quivering Palm. It's like Power Word Kill...except it's not magic...and there's no HP limit...and you can use it multiple times between long rests.

[Maxilian]

Race: Variant Human
Class: Monk (Open Hand) 9/Fighter (Champion) 7/Rogue 1
Stats (Lvl 1): Str 12/Dex 16/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 16/Cha 8
Stats (Lvl 17): Str 12/Dex 20/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 18/Cha 8
AC: 19
HP: 104
Important Skills: Athletics +13 (proficient and expertise)
Human Feat: Mobile
Monk 4 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Monk 8 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Fighter 4 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Fighter 6 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Items: Immovable Rod, Potion of Growth

Before combat begins, drink "Potion of Growth"; this gives the effects of the "Enlarge" spell for 1d4 hours, no concentration required. The three benefits to this are advantage on Str-based ability checks, advantage on Str-based saves, and +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. Let's assume the average running time of 2.5 hours, since there's virtually no chance of this fight lasting longer than that.

Okay, so my initiative is +8, theirs is +4. This means I have a 70% chance of going first once combat actually starts. Assuming he goes first (likely enough to consider), he'll get two attacks, with no advantage/disadvantage, against my AC 20. Taking Deflect Arrows into account, they deal a total of a total average of 5.71125 during their turn. Taking into account the odds of this happening at all (based on who goes first), that changes the average to 1.713375; let's round it up to 2 for the sake of simplicity.

My turn (or maybe it already was). I use my Action to Shove them (in an attempt to knock them prone). With my +13 Athletics vs their +4 Athletics/Acrobatics roll (and with me having advantage on Str-based ability checks from the Potion of Growth), there is a 93.675% that they're prone at this point. Next, I spend a ki point to activate Flurry of Blows; if they're prone (93.675% chance), this deals an average of 30.1365 (depending on where the SA die ends up); if they're not prone, this deals an average of 18.8, and lets me attach Dex save vs. trip to whichever attacks hit. They have a 65% chance of making this save, assuming I even call for a save; with my level of accuracy, that means that they have a 72% chance of not being tripped by that FoB attack; if, at this point, they are prone, I use my Action Surge to deploy my Immovable Rod in keeping them prone, and then use the movement part of my action to move just out of melee range; this doesn't provoke an AoO because I have the Mobile feat and have made an attack this round. With everything added up, this enemy has taken an average of 29.41946638 damage, and has a 96.6635625% chance of being prone, close enough to a guarantee to call it one for the purposes of this contest.

Now, it's their turn. They can only attack at ranged, and they have disadvantage on attack rolls; if their attack hits, I use Deflect Arrows to either completely negate it (1d10+14 vs 15 on a hit), or reduce it (1d10+14 vs 30 on a crit). Everything taken together, the enemy deals an average of 1.69005 damage to me every round. With average HP, Second Wind, Wholeness of Body, and 40 potions, I have effectively 423 HP; taking into account the average 2 damage dealt on the first turn, this means that he kills me in 250.288453...let's call it 250 rounds.

So! I get 250 rounds with which to attack this prone chump; with Wholeness of Body being an action, and Second Wind being a bonus action, my self-healing stuff takes up 1 turn, and each potion takes up another 1, leaving me with 209 more with which to attack. Every turn, I use my action to re-enter melee, attack twice, use my bonus action MA attack to attack a third time, and use the rest of my movement to move back away, going back to just outside melee range, and forcing him to use the deflect-able ranged attack (again, with Mobile preventing any AoOs). Sometimes, I will employ my Flurry of Blows ability, but I can't do this forever. On a round where I don't use FoB, I deal an average of 43.137685 damage to the enemy; on a round where I use FoB, the average rises to 56.11049165 damage. With 8 remaining ki points, that means 8 rounds of FoB and 201 rounds of non-FoB.After totaling everything up, my total, overall damage to the enemy when they finally kill me is...

*drum roll*

9148.978085

...it's not as good as the grapple-based build, which has overall better defenses, but I didn't want to just totally rip it off. Of course, I'm also not sure how viable drinking potions is in a grapple, and while I can guarantee that my numbers are as accurate as necessary, I haven't personally run the numbers for the grapple build; that said, I'm sure those numbers are in the right ballpark, assuming potions can be used during a grapple.In making this, and consulting the existing builds, I've come across a couple potentially useful ideas that other builds, both here and for other things, can make sure of:

1. Thief Rogue can Use an Object (like a potion) as a bonus action. If the Grapple Build went Thief Rogue instead of Assassin Rogue, they'd lose out on the surprise round crits, but they wouldn't have to spend 40 actions chugging Red Bull (spending 40 bonus actions instead).

2. The Potion of Growth is potentially incredibly useful in long-term combat, although still not as much as some other uncommon items (and certainly not as useful as some rare ones).

3. The two big limiting factors on this contest (that don't seem to really make sense for a full-on optimization contest) are the magic item limit (two uncommon, nothing else), and even more bizarrely the level limit; if we're trying to optimize, why not go all the way to 20? That makes some builds much more viable, particularly something like Champion 18/X 2.

4. A Monk with the Mobile feat is not as much of an ******* as a luchador barbarian, but they're probably second place.

5. This wasn't discovered here, but in the previous thread: Bestow Curse is ridiculous, especially when you start stacking the higher-level BCs together.

6. You know what else is obnoxious at the high levels? Quivering Palm. It's like Power Word Kill...except it's not magic...and there's no HP limit...and you can use it multiple times between long rests.

I was thinking on making something like these but it doesn't work, deflect missil only work with ranged
weapon attack and it needs to be a physical missile

The boss attack is not a ranged weapon attack

[ImSAMazing]

I was thinking on making something like these but it doesn't work, deflect missil only work with ranged
weapon attack and it needs to be a physical missile

The boss attack is not a ranged weapon attack
True, therefore:



Race: Variant Human
Class: Monk (Open Hand) 9/Fighter (Champion) 7/Rogue 1
Stats (Lvl 1): Str 12/Dex 16/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 16/Cha 8
Stats (Lvl 17): Str 12/Dex 20/Con 13/Int 8/Wis 18/Cha 8
AC: 19
HP: 104
Important Skills: Athletics +13 (proficient and expertise)
Human Feat: Mobile
Monk 4 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Monk 8 Feat/ASI: Dex +2
Fighter 4 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Fighter 6 Feat/ASI: Wis +2
Items: Immovable Rod, Potion of Growth

Before combat begins, drink "Potion of Growth"; this gives the effects of the "Enlarge" spell for 1d4 hours, no concentration required. The three benefits to this are advantage on Str-based ability checks, advantage on Str-based saves, and +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. Let's assume the average running time of 2.5 hours, since there's virtually no chance of this fight lasting longer than that.

Okay, so my initiative is +8, theirs is +4. This means I have a 70% chance of going first once combat actually starts. Assuming he goes first (likely enough to consider), he'll get two attacks, with no advantage/disadvantage, against my AC 20. Taking Deflect Arrows into account, they deal a total of a total average of 5.71125 during their turn. Taking into account the odds of this happening at all (based on who goes first), that changes the average to 1.713375; let's round it up to 2 for the sake of simplicity.

My turn (or maybe it already was). I use my Action to Shove them (in an attempt to knock them prone). With my +13 Athletics vs their +4 Athletics/Acrobatics roll (and with me having advantage on Str-based ability checks from the Potion of Growth), there is a 93.675% that they're prone at this point. Next, I spend a ki point to activate Flurry of Blows; if they're prone (93.675% chance), this deals an average of 30.1365 (depending on where the SA die ends up); if they're not prone, this deals an average of 18.8, and lets me attach Dex save vs. trip to whichever attacks hit. They have a 65% chance of making this save, assuming I even call for a save; with my level of accuracy, that means that they have a 72% chance of not being tripped by that FoB attack; if, at this point, they are prone, I use my Action Surge to deploy my Immovable Rod in keeping them prone, and then use the movement part of my action to move just out of melee range; this doesn't provoke an AoO because I have the Mobile feat and have made an attack this round. With everything added up, this enemy has taken an average of 29.41946638 damage, and has a 96.6635625% chance of being prone, close enough to a guarantee to call it one for the purposes of this contest.

Now, it's their turn. They can only attack at ranged, and they have disadvantage on attack rolls; if their attack hits, I use Deflect Arrows to either completely negate it (1d10+14 vs 15 on a hit), or reduce it (1d10+14 vs 30 on a crit). Everything taken together, the enemy deals an average of 1.69005 damage to me every round. With average HP, Second Wind, Wholeness of Body, and 40 potions, I have effectively 423 HP; taking into account the average 2 damage dealt on the first turn, this means that he kills me in 250.288453...let's call it 250 rounds.

So! I get 250 rounds with which to attack this prone chump; with Wholeness of Body being an action, and Second Wind being a bonus action, my self-healing stuff takes up 1 turn, and each potion takes up another 1, leaving me with 209 more with which to attack. Every turn, I use my action to re-enter melee, attack twice, use my bonus action MA attack to attack a third time, and use the rest of my movement to move back away, going back to just outside melee range, and forcing him to use the deflect-able ranged attack (again, with Mobile preventing any AoOs). Sometimes, I will employ my Flurry of Blows ability, but I can't do this forever. On a round where I don't use FoB, I deal an average of 43.137685 damage to the enemy; on a round where I use FoB, the average rises to 56.11049165 damage. With 8 remaining ki points, that means 8 rounds of FoB and 201 rounds of non-FoB.After totaling everything up, my total, overall damage to the enemy when they finally kill me is...

*drum roll*

9148.978085

...it's not as good as the grapple-based build, which has overall better defenses, but I didn't want to just totally rip it off. Of course, I'm also not sure how viable drinking potions is in a grapple, and while I can guarantee that my numbers are as accurate as necessary, I haven't personally run the numbers for the grapple build; that said, I'm sure those numbers are in the right ballpark, assuming potions can be used during a grapple.In making this, and consulting the existing builds, I've come across a couple potentially useful ideas that other builds, both here and for other things, can make sure of:

1. Thief Rogue can Use an Object (like a potion) as a bonus action. If the Grapple Build went Thief Rogue instead of Assassin Rogue, they'd lose out on the surprise round crits, but they wouldn't have to spend 40 actions chugging Red Bull (spending 40 bonus actions instead).

2. The Potion of Growth is potentially incredibly useful in long-term combat, although still not as much as some other uncommon items (and certainly not as useful as some rare ones).

3. The two big limiting factors on this contest (that don't seem to really make sense for a full-on optimization contest) are the magic item limit (two uncommon, nothing else), and even more bizarrely the level limit; if we're trying to optimize, why not go all the way to 20? That makes some builds much more viable, particularly something like Champion 18/X 2.

4. A Monk with the Mobile feat is not as much of an ******* as a luchador barbarian, but they're probably second place.

5. This wasn't discovered here, but in the previous thread: Bestow Curse is ridiculous, especially when you start stacking the higher-level BCs together.

6. You know what else is obnoxious at the high levels? Quivering Palm. It's like Power Word Kill...except it's not magic...and there's no HP limit...and you can use it multiple times between long rests.
Is approved, but the damage isn't stopped by Deflect Missiles so the calculations are wrong. You may change your build because it is dissaproved.

[Naanomi]

Adamantine floors rule out my badger riding plan, and with it any way I can see to limit the boss to one attack per round (and thus the ability to only be hit on a critical hit)

Force attacks negate heavy armor master and deflect missiles, and thus while we can reduce damage there doesn't appear to be any way to completely negate it

Still getting more rounds through heavy defense is probably still solid... Max AC I can see is a warforged barbarian/fighter defense style with a +1 shield and +1 cloak... AC 25, 31 on defensive duelist once a round? Probably not a bad way to start

Although loose interpretation of the 'must keep moving' battlemaster maneuver might also work...

[AvatarVecna]

AFAICT, Deflect Missiles has no actual requirement of a physical missile, only that it be a ranged weapon attack. Now, whether a force bullet counts as a ranged weapon attack or not is up to the chairman. But since it's already been rejected, I guess it doesn't matter that much...

The only other idea I've got that's even remotely competitive turned out to be just a slight twist on the grappling barbarian build already posted. I'll see if I can come up with anything else...

[AvatarVecna]

Does this thing count as being damaged for the purpose of the ranger ability that deals +1d8 to creatures below max HP?

EDIT: Nevermind, I just realized it sucks.

[Maxilian]

AFAICT, Deflect Missiles has no actual requirement of a physical missile, only that it be a ranged weapon attack. Now, whether a force bullet counts as a ranged weapon attack or not is up to the chairman. But since it's already been rejected, I guess it doesn't matter that much...

The only other idea I've got that's even remotely competitive turned out to be just a slight twist on the grappling barbarian build already posted. I'll see if I can come up with anything else...

In the first page the OP stated that they were not weapon attacks (should add those details to the main post though)


It has 18 intelligence, so it is really smart. So yes, he ready's actions. His attacks count as non-weapon attacks.

Also a question, whats the vision range / type / etc...

[Maxilian]

Adamantine floors rule out my badger riding plan, and with it any way I can see to limit the boss to one attack per round (and thus the ability to only be hit on a critical hit)

Force attacks negate heavy armor master and deflect missiles, and thus while we can reduce damage there doesn't appear to be any way to completely negate it

Still getting more rounds through heavy defense is probably still solid... Max AC I can see is a warforged barbarian/fighter defense style with a +1 shield and +1 cloak... AC 25, 31 on defensive duelist once a round? Probably not a bad way to start

Although loose interpretation of the 'must keep moving' battlemaster maneuver might also work...

I was working with that Naanomi, but yeah that kind of ruins it :S

[Naanomi]

However since we are pushing easily into 20+ Rounds maybe we need to focus on consistent damage; a warlock/oath breaker pole arm master with heavy weapon mastery? 3 attacks around at +20 damage a hit will add up quickly over 30 rounds, maybe exceeding sneak attack overall

[Maxilian]

However since we are pushing easily into 20+ Rounds maybe we need to focus on consistent damage; a warlock/oath breaker pole arm master with heavy weapon mastery? 3 attacks around at +20 damage a hit will add up quickly over 30 rounds, maybe exceeding sneak attack overall

As far as i know Warlock are not allowed (they are, in the end, casters)

[ImSAMazing]

AFAICT, Deflect Missiles has no actual requirement of a physical missile, only that it be a ranged weapon attack. Now, whether a force bullet counts as a ranged weapon attack or not is up to the chairman. But since it's already been rejected, I guess it doesn't matter that much...

The only other idea I've got that's even remotely competitive turned out to be just a slight twist on the grappling barbarian build already posted. I'll see if I can come up with anything else...

Allright. It's a ranged weapon attack. But you can't catch the missile.

[ImSAMazing]

In the first page the OP stated that they were not weapon attacks (should add those details to the main post though)



Also a question, whats the vision range / type / etc...
Type? Celestial.


However since we are pushing easily into 20+ Rounds maybe we need to focus on consistent damage; a warlock/oath breaker pole arm master with heavy weapon mastery? 3 attacks around at +20 damage a hit will add up quickly over 30 rounds, maybe exceeding sneak attack overall



As far as i know Warlock are not allowed (they are, in the end, casters)
Warlock is allowed, so is Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Sorcerer, Bard and any other spellcasting class, but you may not cast spells. So you may use the Invocations of the Warlock class as long as it doesn't let you cast a spell.

[Maxilian]

Allright. It's a ranged weapon attack. But you can't catch the missile.

Don't allow this, that will basically allow any Monk to just negate the ranged damage completely (I was going to use that in my favor but meeehhh, lets not break it)


Note: If you allow it then my build is going to be monk 10, Fighter 2, Ranger 5 any small race

Spider Mount with the Mounted Combatant feat (To evade my pet getting attacked)

DEX 20 (don't need any other stat)

AC (Who cares?)

Magic Item: Adamantine Armor, Bag of Holding

Use all the gold in Arrows so i will never run of it

Tactic:

-Use my spider to get out of range, forcing the boss to use ranged attacks

-The Deflect Missiles let me ignore 1d10 + Monk Lvl (10) + DEX mod (5) = so at least i will ignore 16 damage

-The Adamantine Armor will make sure i don't take more than 15 damage (so i will evade all the damage)

-I just won't die (nor the boss, actually... i will die of exhaustion on day 3)

[ImSAMazing]

Don't allow these, that will basically allow any Monk to just negate the ranged damage completely (I was going to use that in my favor but meeehhh, lets not break it)

Allright. So it isn't a RANGED weapon attack.

[Ruslan]

Don't allow this, that will basically allow any Monk to just negate the ranged damage completely (I was going to use that in my favor but meeehhh, lets not break it)


Note: If you allow it then my build is going to be monk 10, Fighter 2, Ranger 5 any small race

Spider Mount with the Mounted Combatant feat (To evade my pet getting attacked)

DEX 20 (don't need any other stat)

AC (Who cares?)

Magic Item: Adamantine Armor, Bag of Holding

Use all the gold in Arrows so i will never run of it

Tactic:

-Use my spider to get out of range, forcing the boss to use ranged attacks

-The Deflect Missiles let me ignore 1d10 + Monk Lvl (10) + DEX mod (5) = so at least i will ignore 16 damage

-The Adamantine Armor will make sure i don't take more than 15 damage (so i will evade all the damage)

-I just won't die (nor the boss, actually... i will die of exhaustion on day 3)
Doesn't the enemy have TWO attacks? And doesn't Deflect Missiles use up your Reaction, so you can only deflect ONE?

[AvatarVecna]

Doesn't the enemy have TWO attacks? And doesn't Deflect Missiles use up your Reaction, so you can only deflect ONE?

Yes. The enemy gets two attacks, Deflecting uses up your Reaction (so it can't be used together with Defensive Duelist), and criticals aren't auto-deflected like regular attacks are. In fact, I'm pretty sure I mentioned every single one of these things in my write-up. Deflect Missiles is not an auto-win, at least not any more so than a grappling barbarian is.

EDIT: Also, I might be trading out that build for another one, since I've been given an opportunity. I think I might have found something better...maybe.

[ImSAMazing]

Yes. The enemy gets two attacks, Deflecting uses up your Reaction (so it can't be used together with Defensive Duelist), and criticals aren't auto-deflected like regular attacks are. In fact, I'm pretty sure I mentioned every single one of these things in my write-up. Deflect Missiles is not an auto-win, at least not any more so than a grappling barbarian is.

EDIT: Also, I might be trading out that build for another one, since I've been given an opportunity. I think I might have found something better...maybe.

May the damage be with you.

[AvatarVecna]

Race: Variant Human
Class: Fighter (Champion) 12/Rogue (Thief) 5
Stats (Lvl 1): 16/15/16/8/8/8
Stats (Lvl 17): 18/15/20/8/8/8
Fighting Styles: Defense; Dueling
Skills: Athletics +16 (prof.+exp.)
Human Feat: Defensive Duelist
F4 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F6 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F8 Feat/ASI: Str +2
F12 Feat/ASI: Heavy Weapon Master
R4 Feat/ASI: Tough
Equipment: Rapier, Full Plate, Shield, 40 potions, Potion of Growth, Immovable Rod

Init: +5
AC: 21 (26 w/ Defensive Duelist)
HP: 212 (+17.5 after Second Wind, +280 after potions)
Attack Bonus: +10
Damage: 1d8+1d4+6 (+3d6 SA)
Crit: 2d8+2d4+6 (+6d6 SA)

Before combat begins, drink Potion of Growth. Lasts an average of 2.5 hours.

57.25% chance I go first; 32.75% chance they go first.

If they go first, they attack twice. With a 50% chance of succeeding without Defensive Duelist involved, and no advantage/disadvantage, they end up dealing an average of 8.85 damage if they go first; taking into account the odds of them going first, this damage becomes 2.898...let's round it up to 3 damage.

On my first turn, I use my attack action to knock him prone with a shove; with +16 and advantage opposing +4 and no advantage, this has a 97.45% chance of success of knocking them prone, a virtual guarantee. Assuming that it's successful, I use my Cunning Action to deploy the Immovable Rod to keep them pinned down, then I use my Action Surge to attack 3 times. Because I now have advantage, these attacks can be SA; the average damage dealt to the enemy this round is 50.96252318.

On each of their turns, they're attacking twice with disadvantage, and the first attack that can be negated by Defensive Duelist will be negated thusly. Therefore, their average damage per round, taking everything into account, is 2.79375; this means that, taking all my methods of healing into account (giving me an effective total HP of 509.5), I have 181.297...let's just say 181 rounds to live.

So! Any round where I use Second Wind or a potion to heal, it takes up a bonus action, making my potential bonus action attack from Great Weapon Master unavailable; there are 41 such rounds. That gives me 140 rounds with an average of 56.93079344 damage, and 41 rounds with an average of 50.96252318 damage.

Final Result: I deal an average of...10060 damage before I die.

A more accurate number, for anybody who cares (so just me): 10059.77453

Improvement over previous, rejected build: 910.796447

New total in the second spoiler; I forgot to calculate for Uncanny Dodge, not realizing I had it. That third spoiler redoes the calculations and finds my new damage total.

I really, really, really want to put together a handful of 20th level builds with this same basic premise now. In any case, I'm still not competing with the Barbarian, because they've got more HP and a higher AC. There's not much more I can do without blatantly ripping off their build, though.

EDIT: I've had to rework this build, since I've recently had it pointed out to me that Rogue 5s gets Uncanny Dodge.

An attack where I use my reaction to defend occurs an average of 1.75 times per round and deals an average of 0.31875 damage; an attack where I don't use my reaction occurs an average of .25 times per round and deals an average of 3.7875; this makes the enemy's DPR lower to 1.5046875, meaning they kill me after 338.605...let's say 339 rounds. With 41 of those being no-bonus-action rounds for healing purposes (and dealing 50.96252318 damage), that leaves 298 dealing full damage (56.93079344), meaning that I deal out...

19066.7598955 damage dealt before dying.

Improvement over original rejected build: 9917.7818125

[Maxilian]

Race: Warforge
Classes: Fighter (Champion) 12, Rogue (Thief) 4, Barb 1
Stats (Lvl 1) :STR 16 DEX 15 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA 8
Stats (lvl 17) :STR 16 DEX 20 CON 20 INT 8 WIS 8 CHA 8
Fighting Style: Defense, Archery
F4: CON +2
F6: CON +2
F8: DEX +2
F12: DEX +2
RF4: Resilent (DEX +1)
Skills: Athletics +14
AC: 24 (Bard UA, Defense -FS-, shield, Warforge)
Magic Item: Bag of holding, Immovable Rod
Equipment: Giant Iron Statue that can be used as 3/4 cover, and Arrows many arrows
Initiative: +6

As soon as the fight start run to the nearest wall and put down my cover to make my AC: 29 against his range attacks, in his turn he will easily reach me and attack against my 24 AC, 35% chance of getting hit in both attacks, in next turn just grapple the boss and push it to the wall, use your bonus action to lock him with its face to the wall with the immovable rod, he have disadvantage on his attacks against you and you have advantage, 12.25% of getting hit by his attacks, in my turn move 20 feets away, forcing my objective to use only range attacks with disadvantage and use the Statue to get my AC to 27 (i take out the shield to use my bow), now i attack with advantage i have a 96% to hit, and the enemy have a 4% to hit [/B]


WIP

This is going to be the build but i need sometime to write down the numbers

[Giant2005]

Just for kicks I made a totally nonmagical variant (except with the magic items):


Class: Barbarian 1/ Fighter Champion 5/Rogue (Whatever) 11
Race: Variant Human
Relevant Stats: Strength 14, Con 20, Dex 20, AC 24, hp 183
Skills: Athletics (with expertise) +14, can't roll below 10 (minimum roll 24 is equal to opponent's max roll)
Equipment: Rapier, Bracers of Defense, Ring of Protection? (Don't have my DMG, is this an uncommon item?). 39 healing potions.
Relevant Feats and Abilities: Sneak Attack 6d6, Rage 2/day, Critical 19-20, Mariner Fighting Style, Defensive Duelist feat.

Build from 1st level: Take level 1 as Barbarian for a couple extra hp and take the feat Defensive Duelist. Starting with 14 strength, 16 con and 16 dex. Increase dex with the first two Attribute increases (level 4 and 8 Rogue) then increase Con (lvl 10 rogue, lvl 4 champion).

Battle Tactics:
Round 1: Go first (probably). Rage for advantage on strength checks, move up and use the first attack to shove opponent to the ground, then grapple them.
Round 2: They can't escape. You have advantage to attack (sneak attack) they have disadvantage to hit you. Use defensive duelist and the fact that they are at disadvantage on a difficult roll to avoid most of their damage. Use uncanny dodge instead of duelist if they crit you.

Attack twice per round for 2d8+6d6+10 with a not insignificant chance to crit each round (which may add sneak attack dice!). You only miss 9% of the time, which is roughly cancelled out by crits meaning over the long haul you'll be doing about 40 dmg/round.

Don't worry about them escaping! Once you grapple them they quite literally can't change the situation as the best they can do is tie your athletics roll.

Round Much later: Use second wind to replenish hp. Average damage taken per round is 0.168.

This strategy should keep the fight going for about 1151 rounds before you need to dip into your healing potions (that includes an average roll for second wind). Healing potions will slightly slow your damage, but give you another 1625 rounds. Of which you'd be able to use 1585 rounds for attacking.

Total damage is (1151+1585) * ~40 = 109,440 damage for a fight that lasts 4.56 hours or thereabouts.


This build relies solely on nonmagical abilities. Granted, over half the damage output comes from the four bandoliers of healing potions, but you should ask your GM to reflavor those as energy drinks. HPs are abstract anyways.

Neither Bracers of Defense nor a Ring of Protection are Uncommon items. You can use a Cloak of Protection but that is the only AC Boosting item available (That and a +1 Shield but your build isn't using a Shield). So the max AC you can get is 21.

[Naanomi]

Neither Bracers of Defense nor a Ring of Protection are Uncommon items. You can use a Cloak of Protection but that is the only AC Boosting item available (That and a +1 Shield but your build isn't using a Shield). So the max AC you can get is 21.
Barbarian: AC 20
Shield +1, Cloak of Protection, Defensive Combat Style, War Forged...
26 AC

[Giant2005]

Barbarian: AC 20
Shield +1, Cloak of Protection, Defensive Combat Style, War Forged...
26 AC

When I said "So the max AC you can get is 21", I meant the general "you" not the specific "you".It isn't that the maxpossible AC is 21, but the maximum possible for that build is 21.

[Naanomi]

Ah sorry, got it. Though rocking 26 AC is probably not a bad avenue to explore the math of... Shove and grapple for advantage/disadvantage lock... use monk unarmed attack to headbutt even with a shield and grapple going on... Could do worse

[Malifice]

Weirdly a Champion 18 would win this.

Do warforged need to sleep?

[AvatarVecna]

Weirdly a Champion 18 would win this.

Do warforged need to sleep?

This has come up twice now: yes, they would...if this wasn't a level 17 contest.

EDIT: And to the best of my knowledge, warforged don't sleep per se, but they do go into a sort-of trance for 4 hours (IIRC).

[Coyote81]

Ah sorry, got it. Though rocking 26 AC is probably not a bad avenue to explore the math of... Shove and grapple for advantage/disadvantage lock... use monk unarmed attack to headbutt even with a shield and grapple going on... Could do worse

Minotaur could technically hit for 1d10 still even when grappling and shield

[ImSAMazing]

Minotaur could technically hit for 1d10 still even when grappling and shield

True. Welcome to this thread. Are you going to submit a build or just see what builds will be submitted?

[Coyote81]

True. Welcome to this thread. Are you going to submit a build or just see what builds will be submitted?

I'm thinking about working on a Dual Wield Barbarian build, but honestly, I prefer archer and caster builds.

[Jamesps]

I edited my build to take into account the lack of bracers (took a magic weapon instead). Knocked me down a decimal place in damage output, Oofta :P.

[AvatarVecna]

I edited my build to take into account the lack of bracers (took a magic weapon instead). Knocked me down a decimal place in damage output, Oofta :P.

I was just looking over your build...and I think you're underestimating their chances of escaping. Sure, when your rage is up, and you've got advantage on Str checks, they've got to use their +4 to beat your +14 when you have advantage...but your rage doesn't last very long. When your rage is going, they have a 4.8125% chance of escaping, slightly worse than the odds of rolling a nat 20 (essentially what's required here); one you've lost your advantage, though, their chances rise to a more manageable 13.75% chance of escaping (slightly worse than rolling higher than a 17). This means that it will usually take them perhaps 10 rounds to escape; even if they're only free for a single round, their average damage in that round of freedom would be high enough to actually make up for all the damage they "lost" in the escape attempt.

When I get home, I'm gonna do a full damage audit on your build, to get a more exact number out of it; you may not have the patience to run the numbers, but I'm just obsessed enough to do it.

To the excel spreadsheets!

EDIT: Also, knocking them prone (with a shove) and grappling them are both things that take up [Syour action[/S] an attack, so doing both before they can react requires the use of your Action Surge. Not a huge thing, but worth mentioning.

EDIT 2: I got this wrong. Apologies.

[Jamesps]

I was just looking over your build...and I think you're underestimating their chances of escaping. Sure, when your rage is up, and you've got advantage on Str checks, they've got to use their +4 to beat your +14 when you have advantage...but your rage doesn't last very long. When your rage is going, they have a 4.8125% chance of escaping, slightly worse than the odds of rolling a nat 20 (essentially what's required here); one you've lost your advantage, though, their chances rise to a more manageable 13.75% chance of escaping (slightly worse than rolling higher than a 17). This means that it will usually take them perhaps 10 rounds to escape; even if they're only free for a single round, their average damage in that round of freedom would be high enough to actually make up for all the damage they "lost" in the escape attempt.

When I get home, I'm gonna do a full damage audit on your build, to get a more exact number out of it; you may not have the patience to run the numbers, but I'm just obsessed enough to do it.

To the excel spreadsheets!

EDIT: Also, knocking them prone (with a shove) and grappling them are both things that take up your action, so doing both before they can react requires the use of your Action Surge. Not a huge thing, but worth mentioning.

I forgot I had action surge, so that solves that I suppose.

In order to deal damage they have to escape on their first attempt (otherwise I just recapture them with 3 return attacks, possibly getting to do damage as well). If they do, they get only one attack which I automatically get to use the best of my defensive duelist or uncanny dodge ability (whichever applies). The math for this round is pretty simple: 13.75% chance of escaping on the first try times (10% chance to do 7 damage,+ 5% chance to do 15)=0.195775 damage. According to my calculations above they're doing over twice as much just staying put.

It seems devastating when you think about it, but when you actually see it in action and see that they're wasting all of their attacks every round to escape it looks a lot less impressive.

The one thing I'd be worried about would be a failed recapture. This is probably what I would save action surge (and my remaining rage) for. I'm relying on the fact that it's so horrible if they fail (constant missed rounds more than halving their damage) that it will more than make up for the occasional escape. That said, if it ends up being an incorrect assumption then I can lower the damage per round to 44.4 and change out the rapier+1 for gauntlets of ogre strength, reducing them to a mere 7% chance of escaping. This will worse than quarter their damage output per round for normal rounds and drastically reduce instances of failed recapture.

One could also make the argument that a successful intimidate check might convince the creature that you can always get advantage on strength rolls to initiate a grapple or shove, and thus it's never favorable for it to escape. That'd be the most efficient strategy.

[Malifice]

EDIT: Also, knocking them prone (with a shove) and grappling them are both things that take up your action, so doing both before they can react requires the use of your Action Surge. Not a huge thing, but worth mentioning.

A Tavern Brawler can grapple as a bonus action (if he hits with an unarmed strike). So as long as he has at least 2 attacks, he can knock someone prone (shove), kick them in the head (unarmed strike) and then grapple (bonus action) every round.

A OHM can also take the attack action (grappling with it), and then flurry as a bonus action (using the OHM stun/ knock prone) options each round.

[AvatarVecna]

I forgot I had action surge, so that solves that I suppose.

In order to deal damage they have to escape on their first attempt (otherwise I just recapture them with 3 return attacks, possibly getting to do damage as well). If they do, they get only one attack which I automatically get to use the best of my defensive duelist or uncanny dodge ability (whichever applies). The math for this round is pretty simple: 13.75% chance of escaping on the first try times (10% chance to do 7 damage,+ 5% chance to do 15)=0.195775 damage. According to my calculations above they're doing over twice as much just staying put.

It seems devastating when you think about it, but when you actually see it in action and see that they're wasting all of their attacks every round to escape it looks a lot less impressive.

The one thing I'd be worried about would be a failed recapture. This is probably what I would save action surge (and my remaining rage) for. I'm relying on the fact that it's so horrible if they fail (constant missed rounds more than halving their damage) that it will more than make up for the occasional escape. That said, if it ends up being an incorrect assumption then I can lower the damage per round to 44.4 and change out the rapier+1 for gauntlets of ogre strength, reducing them to a mere 7% chance of escaping. This will worse than quarter their damage output per round for normal rounds and drastically reduce instances of failed recapture.

One could also make the argument that a successful intimidate check might convince the creature that you can always get advantage on strength rolls to initiate a grapple or shove, and thus it's never favorable for it to escape. That'd be the most efficient strategy.

Underlined Part: I actually just looked up that in my book, to make sure I was reading it right, and it turns out I wasn't: shoving a creature counts as 1 attack if you've got Extra Attacks. Grappling, incidentally, also takes up only 1 attack, so you don't even need your action surge to guarantee it.

Bolded Part: I just looked at the grapple rules; it actually points out escaping uses your action, leaving you with just the "moving" part of it. So they can't even get off an attack if their escape succeeds. Of course, then you're just going to use your next turn to try and knock them down and grapple them again, but at least there's a chance of that failing, so I'm pretty that trying to escape is still better than not.

Italicized part: Actually, it might be better for you to trade that Rapier away for a Potion of Growth. How would you like 2.5 hours of advantage on Strength ability checks (grappling, shoving, etc.) and +1d4 damage? That should make escape next to impossible, and should make recapturing them much easier. Also, if you choose Thief as your Rogue sub-class, you can chug Red Bull as a bonus action and still use your action to attack, getting you another 39 rounds of full attacking.

[Malifice]

Rogue 11 is the way to go for shovers/ grapplers

With expertise and reliable talent, you're getting no less than a 27 on your athletics checks to grapple and shove.

The opponent literally cant resist getting grappled or shoved every round.

A rogue 11, Fighter 6 could (attack action) shove it down (auto succeed) and then grapple it with 2nd attack (auto succeed).

It's now permanently grappled and prone (and cant stand up) - the Rogue now permanently gets advantage on all his attacks, and it gets disadvantage on all its return attacks.

Rogue then draws a rapier and starts stabbing.

I'm trying to find a way to abuse this.

[AvatarVecna]

Rogue 11 is the way to go for shovers/ grapplers

With expertise and reliable talent, you're getting no less than a 27 on your athletics checks to grapple and shove.

The opponent literally cant resist getting grappled or shoved every round.

A rogue 11, Fighter 6 could (attack action) shove it down (auto succeed) and then grapple it with 2nd attack (auto succeed).

It's now permanently grappled and prone (and cant stand up) - the Rogue now permanently gets advantage on all his attacks, and it gets disadvantage on all its return attacks.

Rogue then draws a rapier and starts stabbing.

I'm trying to find a way to abuse this.

His build does that. Hell, my build did that...with an immovable rod.

[AvatarVecna]

I think your not taking into account reliable talent the lowest check he can have is a 24 and he has a 50% chance of rolling higher than that. When the PC has advantage the guy has a roughly 1.25% chance to escape and otherwise a 2.5% chance to escape, but he can also change the build get 16 strength and be back to the guy having no chance of escaping but that would also lower the AC. though I'm not sure that spending 40 turns to escape would be worth it since escaping does actually take your whole action so right after the force thing escapes the PC has a high probability of recapturing.

Also neither action take up your action, both of them say in page 195 of the player's handbook that if you are able to make multiple attack with your attack action that this attack replaces one of them.

1) Reliable Talent isn't a part of his build (it comes online at Rogue 11, which he doesn't have), so of course I didn't take it into account.

2) Yes, I looked it up, saw that already, admitted to my mistake, and edited the post you've quoted to rectify my error.

3) I'm looking into one final potential flaw in the grappling build, and I don't know why it took me this long to get to it: how is the enemy doing so little damage?

[numerek]

1) Reliable Talent isn't a part of his build (it comes online at Rogue 11, which he doesn't have), so of course I didn't take it into account.

2) Yes, I looked it up, saw that already, admitted to my mistake, and edited the post you've quoted to rectify my error.

3) I'm looking into one final potential flaw in the grappling build, and I don't know why it took me this long to get to it: how is the enemy doing so little damage?

sorry I could have sworn it was 1 barbarian / 5 champion / 11 rogue whatever, I think he changed the level break down or I got his build confused with a different one but I think his is the only grappler build.

I don't know about the damage now that the ac has been corrected but he was as close to right as I cared to calculate when he thought the ac was 24.

edit and I deleted my previous post

[AvatarVecna]

I'm still not sure what exactly went wacky in his damage calculation, but's it's definitely supposed to be higher than that. Calculations incoming...

EDIT:

When attacking, the enemy has a +10 to hit and disadvantage on the attack roll. They have to hit AC 22, and their target has the Defensive Duelist feat (and a +6 proficiency bonus).

Now, here's how disadvantage works, in terms of statistics: if the enemy was to attack that AC with that to-hit bonus 400 times in a row without taking the feat into account, they would get 1 crit and 72 hits, dealing a total of 1230 damage. This makes their average damage per attack 2.775 when Defensive Duelist isn't being taken into account. However, on an attack where Defensive Duelist is coming into play, they have to target an effective AC 28; if they attacked that AC 400 times, they would get 1 crit and 8 hits, dealing a total of 150 damage. Thus, their average damage per attack is .375 when Defensive Duelist is involved.

Of course, since Defensive Duelist can only be activated for the current attack, and only by spending your reaction on it, there's no way to apply it to multiple attacks. Fortunately, there's no need to do that; if the first attack wasn't high enough to hit AC 22, or if it was high enough to hit AC 28, there's no need to use Defensive Duelist on that attack. Thus, while it's guaranteed that the first attack will use the DD average, the second attack will only use the DD average if your reaction is still available; taking disadvantage into account, the odds of your reaction being available to defend you from the second attack are 82%, with the remaining 18% using the non-DD average. This means the enemy's average damage dealt per round equal to the sum of two products: 1.82 times .375, and .18 times 2.775; adding it all up, we find the enemy's average DPR to be 1.182, significantly higher than originally reported.

...however, I didn't notice that this build also has Uncanny Dodge, nor that my own build should also have that damage reducer. However, Uncanny Dodge also uses your reaction, so you can't use it on both attacks any more than you could use Defensive Duelist on both attacks...and you also can't use both in the same turn. So! I'll leave these calculations here, and go calculate the optimal way to use your reaction to determine your absolute maximum defensive options.

EDIT: Found a slight error in my calculations: attacks without DD hit 72 times, not 80; damage per attack with DD and average DPR have been adjusted accordingly. In addition, I've noted the changes that Uncanny Dodge introduces in the spoiler below:

The first attack has an average damage of .1875, taking the possibility of both Defensive Dueling and Uncanny Dodge into account. However, this changes the odds for the second attack: now, there is a 20.25% chance of using the 2.775 average damage, and "only" a 79.75% chance of using the .1875 damage instead. Taking those into account, the enemy's average DPR against your character is...

.89896875

[Jamesps]

1) Reliable Talent isn't a part of his build (it comes online at Rogue 11, which he doesn't have), so of course I didn't take it into account.

2) Yes, I looked it up, saw that already, admitted to my mistake, and edited the post you've quoted to rectify my error.

3) I'm looking into one final potential flaw in the grappling build, and I don't know why it took me this long to get to it: how is the enemy doing so little damage?

Sorry for the confusion, I originally had a different build before it was stated I couldn't have bracers of defense. I changed the build to shore up offense and defensive capabilities to compensate.

As for how it does so little damage, the answer isn't very intuitive. It's actually missing on both of it's attacks the vast majority of the time (over 92%) thanks to a combination of defensive duelist and disadvantage on attacks. When it does hit, it's usually only once and often for half damage.

Here's the table I worked out. I did it by hand so there's some values of the 160,000 possible rolls that have been counted twice totally about half a percent which likely put me at a higher damage per round than I should be. But half a percent is a minute impact regardless of which category it fell into, so I haven't gone back and figured out the error. Regardless it would have had to either have no impact (if values in the miss/miss category were counted twice) or been detrimental (if any other value had been counted twice).

AC 22, Def Duelist and Uncanny Dodge
Outcome Chance Damage Avg Damage Contribution/Round
miss miss 0.92310625 0 0
miss hit 0.05394375 7 or 15 0.12560625
hit miss 0.0189 7 0.1323
hit hit 0.0045 22 0.099
crit miss 0.00199375 15 0.02990625
miss crit 0.00244375 15 0.03665625
crit hit 0.0005 30 0.015
hit crit 0.00005 37 0.00185
crit crit 0.00000625 45 0.00028125
=0.4406/round


The calculations don't follow standard rules because there's a few different things that can happen for each category. Either it's a "flat miss" on the die. A "graze" where I can negate it with defensive duelist if I still have a reaction, or a "flat hit" where I use uncanny dodge if I still have a reaction.

I put crits in their own category so I didn't have to deal with them.

[AvatarVecna]

Sorry for the confusion, I originally had a different build before it was stated I couldn't have bracers of defense. I changed the build to shore up offense and defensive capabilities to compensate.

As for how it does so little damage, the answer isn't very intuitive. It's actually missing on both of it's attacks the vast majority of the time (over 92%) thanks to a combination of defensive duelist and disadvantage on attacks. When it does hit, it's usually only once and often for half damage.

Here's the table I worked out. I did it by hand so there's some values of the 160,000 possible rolls that have been counted twice totally about half a percent which likely put me at a higher damage per round than I should be. But half a percent is a minute impact regardless of which category it fell into, so I haven't gone back and figured out the error. Regardless it would have had to either have no impact (if values in the miss/miss category were counted twice) or been detrimental (if any other value had been counted twice).

AC 22, Def Duelist and Uncanny Dodge
Outcome Chance Damage Avg Damage Contribution/Round
miss miss 0.92310625 0 0
miss hit 0.05394375 7 or 15 0.12560625
hit miss 0.0189 7 0.1323
hit hit 0.0045 22 0.099
crit miss 0.00199375 15 0.02990625
miss crit 0.00244375 15 0.03665625
crit hit 0.0005 30 0.015
hit crit 0.00005 37 0.00185
crit crit 0.00000625 45 0.00028125
=0.4406/round


The calculations don't follow standard rules because there's a few different things that can happen for each category. Either it's a "flat miss" on the die. A "graze" where I can negate it with defensive duelist if I still have a reaction, or a "flat hit" where I use uncanny dodge if I still have a reaction.

I put crits in their own category so I didn't have to deal with them.

I've posted my own calculations, although they don't account for uncanny dodge. I'm off to run the calculations on that as well, just to make absolutely sure that your build is calculating its damage correctly. And after I've done that, I'm going to go calculate how taking Uncanny Dodge changes my own build, since my Rogue 5 apparently also has that.

EDIT: The calculations in my previous post are now more accurate, and a new section has been added to take Uncanny Dodge into account: the enemy's final DPR against you is .89896875, which is significantly higher than was originally reported (at least, significant for our purposes). I'm off to see what chances this has in my own build.

[AvatarVecna]

Race: Variant Human
Class: Fighter (Champion) 12/Rogue (Thief) 5
Stats (Lvl 1): 16/15/16/8/8/8
Stats (Lvl 17): 18/15/20/8/8/8
Fighting Styles: Defense; Dueling
Skills: Athletics +16 (prof.+exp.)
Human Feat: Defensive Duelist
F4 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F6 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F8 Feat/ASI: Str +2
F12 Feat/ASI: Heavy Weapon Master
R4 Feat/ASI: Tough
Equipment: Rapier, Full Plate, Shield, 40 potions, Potion of Growth, Immovable Rod

Init: +5
AC: 21 (26 w/ Defensive Duelist)
HP: 212 (+17.5 after Second Wind, +280 after potions)
Attack Bonus: +10
Damage: 1d8+1d4+6 (+3d6 SA)
Crit: 2d8+2d4+6 (+6d6 SA)

Before combat begins, drink Potion of Growth. Lasts an average of 2.5 hours.

57.25% chance I go first; 32.75% chance they go first.

If they go first, they attack twice. With a 50% chance of succeeding without Defensive Duelist involved, and no advantage/disadvantage, they end up dealing an average of 8.85 damage if they go first; taking into account the odds of them going first, this damage becomes 2.898...let's round it up to 3 damage.

On my first turn, I use my attack action to knock him prone with a shove; with +16 and advantage opposing +4 and no advantage, this has a 97.45% chance of success of knocking them prone, a virtual guarantee. Assuming that it's successful, I use my Cunning Action to deploy the Immovable Rod to keep them pinned down, then I use my Action Surge to attack 3 times. Because I now have advantage, these attacks can be SA; the average damage dealt to the enemy this round is 50.96252318.

On each of their turns, they're attacking twice with disadvantage, and the first attack that can be negated by Defensive Duelist will be negated thusly. Therefore, their average damage per round, taking everything into account, is 2.79375; this means that, taking all my methods of healing into account (giving me an effective total HP of 509.5), I have 181.297...let's just say 181 rounds to live.

So! Any round where I use Second Wind or a potion to heal, it takes up a bonus action, making my potential bonus action attack from Great Weapon Master unavailable; there are 41 such rounds. That gives me 140 rounds with an average of 56.93079344 damage, and 41 rounds with an average of 50.96252318 damage.

Final Result: I deal an average of...10060 damage before I die.

A more accurate number, for anybody who cares (so just me): 10059.77453

Improvement over previous, rejected build: 910.796447

New total in the second spoiler; I forgot to calculate for Uncanny Dodge, not realizing I had it. That third spoiler redoes the calculations and finds my new damage total.

I really, really, really want to put together a handful of 20th level builds with this same basic premise now. In any case, I'm still not competing with the Barbarian, because they've got more HP and a higher AC. There's not much more I can do without blatantly ripping off their build, though.

EDIT: I've had to rework this build, since I've recently had it pointed out to me that Rogue 5s gets Uncanny Dodge.

An attack where I use my reaction to defend occurs an average of 1.75 times per round and deals an average of 0.31875 damage; an attack where I don't use my reaction occurs an average of .25 times per round and deals an average of 3.7875; this makes the enemy's DPR lower to 1.5046875, meaning they kill me after 338.605...let's say 339 rounds. With 41 of those being no-bonus-action rounds for healing purposes (and dealing 50.96252318 damage), that leaves 298 dealing full damage (56.93079344), meaning that I deal out...

19066.7598955 damage dealt before dying.

Improvement over original rejected build: 9917.7818125

Quoting my build, including it's new update, for consideration.

[Ralanr]

Murik (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=555062)
Half-Orc Barbrian 9 (Totem)/Fighter 8 (champion) 17

AC 18 HP 150 Speed 40ft

Str 20 (5) Dex 14 (2) Con 14 (2) Wis 14 (2) Int 8 (-1) Cha 9 (-1)

Attacks
+1 Warhammer (B/melee) +10 1d8+1
+1 War Pick (P/melee) +10 1d8+1




Darkvision up to 60 feet
Relentless endurance: When reduced to 0 hit points I can choose to drop to 1 instead. I can't use this feature again until I finish a long rest.
Savage attacks: I roll one extra damage die upon critical hit
Rage (4 times a day) +3 rage damage
Unarmored Defense
Reckless attack: Gain advantage on strength based melee attack, all enemies have advantage to hit me until my next turn.
Danger Sense: Advantage on Dexterity saves against effects that I can see, such as traps and spells. Cannot benefit from this if blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.
Extra attack.
Fast movement.
Feral instinct: Advantage on initiative roles. Can choose to act normally if surprised and not incapacitated, but must rage first if I choose to act normally.
Brutal critical: I roll an extra damage die when I crit (2 extra because of half-orc trait)
Totem warrior: Bear rage (Half damage on everything except psychic during rage)
Bear aspect: Doubled carrying capacity and advantage on strength checks to push, pull, lift, or break objects.
Fighting style: Two-weapon fighting (Add ability modifier on off hand weapon attack)
Second wind: Bonus action heal 1d10+9 HP. Requires short or long rest to do again
Improved Critical: crits on 19-20
Remarkable Athlete: Half of proficiency bonus added to any strength, con, or dex check that doesn't use my proficiency bonus (rounded up)

Feats: Dual Wielder, Savage Attacker, Resilient (Wisdom)

Start from Barbarian (original stats 17, 13, 13, 14, 8, 9) increase 17 and 13 to 18 str and 14 wis, max str 20, then get feats Dual Wielder, Resilient (Wis), and Savage Attacker

I don't know how to do the combat scenarios.
Not the best at math.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't know how to do the combat scenarios.
Not the best at math.

I can run the numbers, but I'll need to know what your general tactics are going to be.

[Ralanr]

I can run the numbers, but I'll need to know what your general tactics are going to be.

If he wins initiative (which he has a good chance) he'll close the distance, (if within 40 feet) enter rage, and swing with his warhammer using both hands (so 1 d10) because he had to use his bonus action for rage. Round two he'll take out his second weapon and attack with both. Upon reaching half health he'll use second wind and start to use reckless attack every other turn. Upon reaching 0 or below he'll use his racial passive to go to 1, then use action surge and reckless attack for a final burst. Savage attacker every time he has a low roll.

That's the most likely form of general tactics I can think off against a magical being of force. If it had weapons he's probably try and disarm it. He'll also try to keep close to his target at all times.

Edit: And keep rage up if ever possible. If he cannot close the distance in his normal movement speed, he'll dash in and activate rage when he is up close to his enemy.

[AvatarVecna]

Murik (http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=555062)
Half-Orc Barbrian 9 (Totem)/Fighter 8 (champion) 17

AC 18 HP 150 Speed 40ft

Str 20 (5) Dex 14 (2) Con 14 (2) Wis 14 (2) Int 8 (-1) Cha 9 (-1)

Attacks
+1 Warhammer (B/melee) +10 1d8+1
+1 War Pick (P/melee) +10 1d8+1




Darkvision up to 60 feet
Relentless endurance: When reduced to 0 hit points I can choose to drop to 1 instead. I can't use this feature again until I finish a long rest.
Savage attacks: I roll one extra damage die upon critical hit
Rage (4 times a day) +3 rage damage
Unarmored Defense
Reckless attack: Gain advantage on strength based melee attack, all enemies have advantage to hit me until my next turn.
Danger Sense: Advantage on Dexterity saves against effects that I can see, such as traps and spells. Cannot benefit from this if blinded, deafened, or incapacitated.
Extra attack.
Fast movement.
Feral instinct: Advantage on initiative roles. Can choose to act normally if surprised and not incapacitated, but must rage first if I choose to act normally.
Brutal critical: I roll an extra damage die when I crit (2 extra because of half-orc trait)
Totem warrior: Bear rage (Half damage on everything except psychic during rage)
Bear aspect: Doubled carrying capacity and advantage on strength checks to push, pull, lift, or break objects.
Fighting style: Two-weapon fighting (Add ability modifier on off hand weapon attack)
Second wind: Bonus action heal 1d10+9 HP. Requires short or long rest to do again
Improved Critical: crits on 19-20
Remarkable Athlete: Half of proficiency bonus added to any strength, con, or dex check that doesn't use my proficiency bonus (rounded up)

Feats: Dual Wielder, Savage Attacker, Resilient (Wisdom)

Start from Barbarian (original stats 17, 13, 13, 14, 8, 9) increase 17 and 13 to 18 str and 14 wis, max str 20, then get feats Dual Wielder, Resilient (Wis), and Savage Attacker

I don't know how to do the combat scenarios.
Not the best at math.

If he wins initiative (which he has a good chance) he'll close the distance, (if within 40 feet) enter rage, and swing with his warhammer using both hands (so 1 d10) because he had to use his bonus action for rage. Round two he'll take out his second weapon and attack with both. Upon reaching half health he'll use second wind and start to use reckless attack every other turn. Upon reaching 0 or below he'll use his racial passive to go to 1, then use action surge and reckless attack for a final burst. Savage attacker every time he has a low roll.

That's the most likely form of general tactics I can think off against a magical being of force. If it had weapons he's probably try and disarm it. He'll also try to keep close to his target at all times.

Edit: And keep rage up if ever possible. If he cannot close the distance in his normal movement speed, he'll dash in and activate rage when he is up close to his enemy.



Barbarian
AC: 15 (See Note #1)
HP: 150 (Second Wind +14.5)
Attack: +11 (3 attacks)
Damage: 1d8+9
Crit Damage: 2d8+9

Enemy
AC: 18
HP: infinite
Attack: +10 (2 attacks)
Damage: 7.5
Crit Damage: 15

Note #1: I can't figure out how this guy was supposed to have AC 18; he's not wearing armor, has no magic items, doesn't have a shield, and doesn't have high enough stats to warrant such an AC. His current AC, until he gets some armor, a shield, or some magic items, is 15 (10+Dex mod 2+Con Mod 2+Dual Wielder 1). If evidence comes to light showing how his AC is 18, numbers will be corrected.

Note #2: Proficiency bonus is based on character level, not class level, so this character's proficiency bonus is +6, not the reported +4.

Note #3: The barbarian has Initiative +5 and advantage on such checks; the enemy has +4 Initiative. This gives the Barbarian a 73.6375% chance of going first, close enough to a gimme that we'll let it go.

Note #4: Trying to calculate optimal use of Savage Attack is giving me a headache, and I'm only having to work with a single damage die. Screw it, it's used for advantage on the first damage roll, no matter what that is.

Note #5: No magic items are mentioned; this could make a significant difference (such as AC bonuses, damage bonuses, etc.), but I don't think they'll put this build in the 5 digit damage numbers that two other builds have already reached.

In his first round, the Barbarian activates Rage and makes two attacks. Savage Attack will be used to reroll the first damage roll regardless (because the calculations are otherwise more than I can bear). Without Reckless Attack being used, this makes the barbarian deal an average of 22.83312068 damage during the first round, and any other round where he doesn't use Reckless attack and uses his bonus action for something other than attacking (such as reactivating rage or using his Second Wind). In subsequent rounds, he gets three attacks (again, without Reckless Rage ATM); this continues until he reaches half health (except when he needs to renew his rage). When he gets all three attacks, he deals an average of 33.71849058 damage.

Now, the enemy is dealing half damage against him during his rage (because it's not dealing psychic damage), which is a point in his favor; the enemy deals an average of 12.75 damage a round to the Barbarian when Reckless Attack isn't in effect. It takes 6 round for this to reduce the barbarian below half HP, giving the barbarian 5 rounds of three attacks. At this point, the Barbarian uses their Second Wind (bringing him up to 88 HP) and attacks once more, using Reckless Attack every other turn. Current total is 2 rounds of 2 Attacks/No RA, and 5 rounds of 3 Attacks/No RA. The enemy attacks once more, bringing the Barbarian down to 75.25 HP total.

The Barbarian makes 3 attacks, using Reckless Attack (and Savage Attacker on the first hit/crit). Average damage on a round with 3 Attacks/RA is 45.92372673. The enemy's average damage when Reckless Attack is in play is 15.8625 (putting our barbarian at 59.3875). The next two rounds are 3 Attacks/No RA and 3 Attacks/RA for the barbarian; during this time, the enemy takes them down to 30.775 HP. At this point, the barbarian uses a second rage, making the next two rounds 2 Attacks/No RA (since activating Rage is a bonus action) and 3 Attacks/RA; during that time, the enemy takes them down to 2.1625 HP.

Knowing the end is near, the Barbarian uses RA the next turn as well, making for another 3A/RA round; the enemy reduces them below 0 HP. At this point, the Barbarian uses his racial ability to instead be at 1 HP. He uses his Action surge to get 5 attacks at advantage this turn, which deals an average of 75.62472079 damage. Then the enemy attacks and kills him. The barbarian got...

3 rounds of 2A/No RA (22.83312068 each)
7 9 rounds of 3A/No RA (33.71849058 each)
4 rounds of 3A/RA (45.92372673 each)
1 round of 5A/RA (75.62472079 each)

Total Damage Dealt Before Death: 563.84842381 631.28540497 damage.

[AvatarVecna]

Incidentally, I'm going to put together one final build to maybe take advantage of the bear totem damage resistance.

[Ralanr]

Barbarian
AC: 15 (See Note #1)
HP: 150 (Second Wind +14.5)
Attack: +11 (3 attacks)
Damage: 1d8+9
Crit Damage: 2d8+9

Enemy
AC: 18
HP: infinite
Attack: +10 (2 attacks)
Damage: 7.5
Crit Damage: 15

Note #1: I can't figure out how this guy was supposed to have AC 18; he's not wearing armor, has no magic items, doesn't have a shield, and doesn't have high enough stats to warrant such an AC. His current AC, until he gets some armor, a shield, or some magic items, is 15 (10+Dex mod 2+Con Mod 2+Dual Wielder 1). If evidence comes to light showing how his AC is 18, numbers will be corrected.

Note #2: Proficiency bonus is based on character level, not class level, so this character's proficiency bonus is +6, not the reported +4.

Note #3: The barbarian has Initiative +5 and advantage on such checks; the enemy has +4 Initiative. This gives the Barbarian a 73.6375% chance of going first, close enough to a gimme that we'll let it go.

Note #4: Trying to calculate optimal use of Savage Attack is giving me a headache, and I'm only having to work with a single damage die. Screw it, it's used for advantage on the first damage roll, no matter what that is.

Note #5: No magic items are mentioned; this could make a significant difference (such as AC bonuses, damage bonuses, etc.), but I don't think they'll put this build in the 5 digit damage numbers that two other builds have already reached.

In his first round, the Barbarian activates Rage and makes two attacks. Savage Attack will be used to reroll the first damage roll regardless (because the calculations are otherwise more than I can bear). Without Reckless Attack being used, this makes the barbarian deal an average of 22.83312068 damage during the first round, and any other round where he doesn't use Reckless attack and uses his bonus action for something other than attacking (such as reactivating rage or using his Second Wind). In subsequent rounds, he gets three attacks (again, without Reckless Rage ATM); this continues until he reaches half health (except when he needs to renew his rage). When he gets all three attacks, he deals an average of 33.71849058 damage.

Now, the enemy is dealing half damage against him during his rage (because it's not dealing psychic damage), which is a point in his favor; the enemy deals an average of 12.75 damage a round to the Barbarian when Reckless Attack isn't in effect. It takes 6 round for this to reduce the barbarian below half HP, giving the barbarian 5 rounds of three attacks. At this point, the Barbarian uses their Second Wind (bringing him up to 88 HP) and attacks once more, using Reckless Attack every other turn. Current total is 2 rounds of 2 Attacks/No RA, and 5 rounds of 3 Attacks/No RA. The enemy attacks once more, bringing the Barbarian down to 75.25 HP total.

The Barbarian makes 3 attacks, using Reckless Attack (and Savage Attacker on the first hit/crit). Average damage on a round with 3 Attacks/RA is 45.92372673. The enemy's average damage when Reckless Attack is in play is 15.8625 (putting our barbarian at 59.3875). The next two rounds are 3 Attacks/No RA and 3 Attacks/RA for the barbarian; during this time, the enemy takes them down to 30.775 HP. At this point, the barbarian uses a second rage, making the next two rounds 2 Attacks/No RA (since activating Rage is a bonus action) and 3 Attacks/RA; during that time, the enemy takes them down to 2.1625 HP.

Knowing the end is near, the Barbarian uses RA the next turn as well, making for another 3A/RA round; the enemy reduces them below 0 HP. At this point, the Barbarian uses his racial ability to instead be at 1 HP. He uses his Action surge to get 5 attacks at advantage this turn, which deals an average of 75.62472079 damage. Then the enemy attacks and kills him. The barbarian got...

3 rounds of 2A/No RA (22.83312068 each)
7 rounds of 3A/No RA (33.71849058 each)
4 rounds of 3A/RA (45.92372673 each)
1 round of 5A/RA (75.62472079 each)

Total Damage Dealt Before Death: 563.84842381 damage.

Did I not write down the scale mail? My bad. 15+2+1 when wielding both weapons, which are magical because they are +1 weapons.

[AvatarVecna]

Did I not write down the scale mail? My bad. 15+2+1 when wielding both weapons.

No worries, I'll go recalculate. Mind you, I'm not expecting it to exactly top 1000 just from 3 extra points of AC, but we'll see where it gets you.

[AvatarVecna]

Okay, so here's the effect of 3 extra AC points: the enemy's DPR with Reckless Attack on went from 15.8625 to 14.625; their DPR without Reckless Attack went from 12.75 to 10.5; assuming about a 3 to 1 ratio between No RA and RA rounds (since half the time, you weren't using it, and the other half you used it every other round), and they had 14 attacks, so, their overall damage was reduced by about 20 points. This gives you a couple extra attacks during the first half of the fight (since after that, not much changes), so you get another 2 rounds of 3A/No RA, which gives you another 67.43698116 damage, bringing your new total to 631.28540497 damage dealt.

EDIT: Add another 50 on top of that; you made 50 attacks before dying, and while the damage bonus wouldn't necessarily apply to every attack (since some of them could miss), you're also more likely to hit than you were before. 50 minus a piddly number plus a piddly number is roughly 50.

[numerek]

If the immovable rod thing works

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=553401

15 barbarian 2 fighter
variant human
rapier shield +1 39 healing potions
defensive duelist
dueling fighting style
Action surge
second wind
mariner style
Unarmored defense
feral instincts
brutal critical +2 dice
relentless rage
persistent rage doesn't end
proficient athletics
Totem spirit 3rd level bear(resistance to force), 14th level wolf(bonus action prone)
14 str 16+4 dex 16+2 con 8 wis 10 int 8 cha
AC 10+5(dex)+4(con)+3(shield)+6(defensive duelist)=28, 22 after defensive duelist
197 HP
Do the rod thing first turn attack bonus action prone action surge immovable rod.
After that stab with the rapier, defensive duelist as necessary with resistance to force damage. healing potions as necessary
second wind and relentless rage will keep me in the fight for some extra rounds.

In order for him to hit me without duelist to defend me he needs to roll above 11 on all 4 d20s there is a 4% chance of that otherwise hits me on a 18+ with disadvantage, so .0175*7 + .0025*15 + .04*7 + .0025*15=0.4775 damage per round
I give myself 479 effective hitpoints so 1916 turns - 40 turns 1003

my damage is ((4.5+7)*.99+(13.5)*.0975)*2=25.4025 a turn = 25478.7075

Editted removed mariner Added dueling, took into account it rolling above 11 on all 4 d20s this resulted in my damage being about half what it was.

Build invalid due to misunderstanding persistent rage

[Ralanr]

Okay, so here's the effect of 3 extra AC points: the enemy's DPR with Reckless Attack on went from 15.8625 to 14.625; their DPR without Reckless Attack went from 12.75 to 10.5; assuming about a 3 to 1 ratio between No RA and RA rounds (since half the time, you weren't using it, and the other half you used it every other round), and they had 14 attacks, so, their overall damage was reduced by about 20 points. This gives you a couple extra attacks during the first half of the fight (since after that, not much changes), so you get another 2 rounds of 3A/No RA, which gives you another 67.43698116 damage, bringing your new total to 631.28540497 damage dealt.

Damn. Guess I wasn't as good an optimizer as I thought :smallbiggrin:

[AvatarVecna]

If the immovable rod thing works

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=553401

15 barbarian 2 fighter
variant human
rapier shield +1 39 healing potions
defensive duelist
Action surge
second wind
mariner style
Unarmored defense
feral instincts
brutal critical +2 dice
relentless rage
persistent rage doesn't end
proficient athletics
Totem spirit 3rd level bear(resistance to force), 14th level wolf(bonus action prone)
14 str 16+4 dex 16+2 con 8 wis 10 int 8 cha
AC 10+5(dex)+4(con)+3(shield)+6(defensive duelist)+1(mariner)=29
197 HP
Do the rod thing first turn attack bonus action prone action surge immovable rod.
After that stab with the rapier, defensive duelist as necessary with resistance to force damage. healing potions as necessary
second wind and relentless rage will keep me in the fight for some extra rounds.

It hits me on a 19 or 20 with disadvantage, so (.0075*7 + .0025*15)*2=.18 damage per round
I give myself 479 effective hitpoints so 2661 turns - 40 turns 2621

my damage is ((4.5+5)*.99+(13.5)*.0975)*2=21.4425 a turn = 56200.7925

Defensive Duelist is a 1/round thing, because it uses your reaction, and the Mariner fighting style doesn't work if you're using a shield. Your AC is a lot lower than you're thinking, and their average DPR is much higher, giving you many less rounds than you're expecting and much less damage. Minor side note (since I think you might have actually taken this into account) is that the bear totem resistance to force damage is only active when you're raging. It looks like you accounted for that, so that gets a pass, but the AC BS going on here does not.

[Malifice]

My entry:

Constructicon Maximus
Warforged Moon Druid 3, Conjurer 2, Fighter (BM) 6, Assassin 5, Barbarian 1
Item 1: Immobile rod. Second item, bag of holding.
Mundane items: 2000gp worth of Iron plated concrete bricks, mortar, concrete, reinforcing beams, Bow, arrows.

Feat: Skulker, sharpshooter

Expertise in engineering, stealth, athletics one more.

Step 1: Action surge, rage, shove and pin creature with rod.

Step 2: Move 30' and use minor conjuration to create an iron wall 3' high to provide you total cover.

Step 3: Pull out Iron plated bricks from your bag of holding and start building a wall from behind said cover.

Step 4: Continue with wall, reinforcing as needed. Use (expertise) in engineering to make sure the wall is structurally sound, and contains a few arrow slits (three should do it).

Step 5: Once your battlement is complete, proceed to hide behind it. Repeatedly ambush the force creature from a random selection of one of your three arrow slits and behind your 3/4 cover (Thanks to skulker, you don't reveal which arrow slit on a miss). Use uncanny dodge if it manages to hit you. Rinse and repeat.

If HP get low, take a short rest, using wild shape+ spell slots (or simply hit dice) to heal (if it actually hit you). Short and long rest at will behind the safety of your battlements, healing and recovering superiority dice and spell slots.

If arrows run out, use minor conjuration to create more. Don't forget to repair the wall as needed (using minor conjuration to create a portable cover for yourself as needed).

As a warforged, you dont eat or drink, and have no natural lifespan so can continue infinitely.

Damage = infinite - or until you get bored (whichever comes first).

If the new Ranger was allowed, I would ditch skulker, take two levels in that, and (thanks to the 2nd level ability of the UA Ranger) be perma hidden from the force monster.

[AvatarVecna]

Step 2: Move 30' and use minor conjuration to create an iron wall 3' high to provide you total cover.

1. Ignoring the problems with this step presented below, how is your medium creature hiding behind a 3ft by 3ft barricade? Curling up into a ball? Gonna be awfully hard to make a new wall that way, especially without exposing some part of your body. And then you can't call it total cover.

2. Any wall you summon isn't going to be anchored into the ground, so it won't stand up well (heh) to any sort of physical force like an attack.

3. "But it's too heavy!" you cry in indignation, forgetting that the Minor Conjuration ability has a weight limit of 10 pounds. Iron weighs 491.55 pounds per cubic foot; since the largest area you can hide behind is 3 ft tall by 3 ft wide (since Minor Conjuration also has a dimension limitation), the thickness of your not-anchored-into-the-ground-at-all wall is .027 inches thick. To clarify, that's roughly the thickness of 9 sheets of paper. Forget ranged attacks: this flimsy, anorexic excuse for a wall will come crashing down just from trying to hold itself up. It's base isn't wide enough to support its weight, it's gonna fall basically instantly.


Step 3: Pull out Iron plated bricks from your bag of holding and start building a wall from behind said cover.

Step 4: Continue with wall, reinforcing as needed. Use (expertise) in engineering to make sure the wall is structurally sound, and contains a few arrow slits (three should do it).

Step 5: Once your battlement is complete, proceed to hide behind it. Repeatedly ambush the force creature from a random selection of one of your three arrow slits and behind your 3/4 cover (Thanks to skulker, you don't reveal which arrow slit on a miss). Use uncanny dodge if it manages to hit you. Rinse and repeat.

4. The Bag of Holding has a 500 lbs capacity limit. Even assuming the iron plating is negligible in terms of weight and space, Concrete has a density of 150 lb/cubic foot; assuming you build a structure just as covering as the last one, this one will be a whole .37 inches thick. That's right, a whole third of an inch. Once again, not really anchored into anything, although it's remarkably sturdy. "But I can make it anchored into the floor!" you cry out in indignation once more. I'll grant you that you could use mortar to glue it to the floor, but it won't be embedded. That's solid adamantine under your feet there; you can't even burrow through that stuff, much less chip enough away with your tools to embed your wall in the floor.

5. And since the first wall fell under it's own weight, you have no cover while building your second wall. You are now full of holes, or you will be, anyway. Sure, he's got disadvantage on the attack roll, and sure, you've got Uncanny Dodge to save you if he hits, but that's still a good bit of damage when it hits, and it's going to whittle you down...assuming he targets you, of course. If he does target you, he'll kill you pretty quickly; that wild shape healing will only get you so far before he's whittling your HP down to 0, and you won't have enough time to take so much as a short rest, much less a long one.

6. He'll probably just target that wannabe wall you're in the process of building, and the bricks you're using to build that wall. Any individual brick is gonna be tough to break, as is the wall...but force damage could do it, and those bricks don't have Uncanny dodge to save their butts. How long before your brick supply is just so much dust?One final build from me. It's not an official submission, it's more for my own amusement.

Race: Variant Human
Class: Barbarian (Totem) 4/Rogue (Thief) 5/Fighter (Champion) 8
Stats (Lvl 1): 14/16/16/8/10/8
Stats (Lvl 17): 14/16/20/8/10/8
AC: 20
HP: 200
Attack Bonus: +11 (two attacks and HWM bonus attack on crit)
Human Feat: Savage Attacker
B4 Feat/ASI: Con +2
R4 Feat/ASI: Defensive Duelist
F4 Feat/ASI: Tough
F6 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F8 Feat/ASI: Heavy Weapon Master
Totem Spirit: Bear
Trained Skills: Athletics, others not important
Expertise: Athletics, Acrobatics
Fighting Style: Dueling
Items: Rapier, Shield, (39) Healing Potions
Magic Items: Potion of Growth, Potion of Hill Giant Strength

Before combat starts, chug your two super-potions to shoot your Str to 21, to get advantage on Str based ability checks, and to get +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. These potions last for 1 and 2.5 hours respectively, but I doubt this combat will last that long.

Start of combat, you have a 57.25% chance of going first. If you go first, you take 0 damage before acting; if they go first, you take an average of 5.96 damage (taking into account the potential use of your reaction on either Defensive Duelist or Uncanny Dodge). Averaging everything together (and rounding for simplicity), you take 3 points of damage before you go.

With advantage on Str-based ability checks and a +17 Athletics bonus, and with the enemy having a +4 Athletics/Acrobatics bonus, they have a 3.0625% chance to not be prone and grappled at the end of your attack sequence; use one attack to Shove them prone, and the other to initiate a grapple once they're prone. As a bonus action, activate your rage.

They have about a 1/80 chance of escaping the grapple, escaping takes up the non-movement portion of their action, so they won't get to attack even if they escape, and they'll get easily recaptured next turn anyway. Thus, their best option for the moment is to attack every round. Between my AC, Defensive Duelist, Uncanny Dodge, resistance to Force damage, and disadvantage on the attack roll, their average DPR against me is 1.105734375, at least until I don't have any rage left. That means that they deal 20 rounds of that, and then all rounds after that deal no-rage-reduction damage (2.21146875 damage). If I wait until my rage is over to use my Second Wind and my Healing Potions, I'll have an effective 486.5 HP, meaning they kill me in 229.98954...let's call it 230 rounds.

1 round of that will be raging with my bonus action and using my Action Surge; 18 rounds of that is raging with my bonus action; 1 round of that is raging without my bonus action; 40 rounds of that is without bonus action or rage bonuses, and the other 170 are with my bonus action. I'll be using my Savage Attacker feat and my Sneak Attack bonus dice on the first attack to hit every round.

Rage On, Bonus Action Available, Action Surge Used: 1 round (87.70251341 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Available: 18 rounds (52.21594028 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Unavailable: 1 round (46.75136928 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Available: 170 rounds (47.95004228 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Unavailable: 40 rounds (43.11136928 average DPR)

Total Damage before Death: 10950.30276653 damage

Yeah, that's about what I was expecting: my Fighter (Champion) 12/Rogue (Thief) 5 build did miles better, because of the extra attack per round and the extra point of AC; maybe they could do even better if I traded away something for Savage Attacker. Oh well...now I'm going to go figure out what the winner of this challenge would be if I was 20th level and had up to two magic items of each rarity level. Later everybody!

[Malifice]

1. Ignoring the problems with this step presented below, how is your medium creature hiding behind a 3ft by 3ft barricade? Curling up into a ball? Gonna be awfully hard to make a new wall that way, especially without exposing some part of your body. And then you can't call it total cover.

2. Any wall you summon isn't going to be anchored into the ground, so it won't stand up well (heh) to any sort of physical force like an attack.

3. "But it's too heavy!" you cry in indignation, forgetting that the Minor Conjuration ability has a weight limit of 10 pounds. Iron weighs 491.55 pounds per cubic foot; since the largest area you can hide behind is 3 ft tall by 3 ft wide (since Minor Conjuration also has a dimension limitation), the thickness of your not-anchored-into-the-ground-at-all wall is .027 inches thick. To clarify, that's roughly the thickness of 9 sheets of paper. Forget ranged attacks: this flimsy, anorexic excuse for a wall will come crashing down just from trying to hold itself up. It's base isn't wide enough to support its weight, it's gonna fall basically instantly.



4. The Bag of Holding has a 500 lbs capacity limit. Even assuming the iron plating is negligible in terms of weight and space, Concrete has a density of 150 lb/cubic foot; assuming you build a structure just as covering as the last one, this one will be a whole .37 inches thick. That's right, a whole third of an inch. Once again, not really anchored into anything, although it's remarkably sturdy. "But I can make it anchored into the floor!" you cry out in indignation once more. I'll grant you that you could use mortar to glue it to the floor, but it won't be embedded. That's solid adamantine under your feet there; you can't even burrow through that stuff, much less chip enough away with your tools to embed your wall in the floor.

5. And since the first wall fell under it's own weight, you have no cover while building your second wall. You are now full of holes, or you will be, anyway. Sure, he's got disadvantage on the attack roll, and sure, you've got Uncanny Dodge to save you if he hits, but that's still a good bit of damage when it hits, and it's going to whittle you down...assuming he targets you, of course. If he does target you, he'll kill you pretty quickly; that wild shape healing will only get you so far before he's whittling your HP down to 0, and you won't have enough time to take so much as a short rest, much less a long one.

6. He'll probably just target that wannabe wall you're in the process of building, and the bricks you're using to build that wall. Any individual brick is gonna be tough to break, as is the wall...but force damage could do it, and those bricks don't have Uncanny dodge to save their butts. How long before your brick supply is just so much dust?One final build from me. It's not an official submission, it's more for my own amusement.

Race: Variant Human
Class: Barbarian (Totem) 4/Rogue (Thief) 5/Fighter (Champion) 8
Stats (Lvl 1): 14/16/16/8/10/8
Stats (Lvl 17): 14/16/20/8/10/8
AC: 20
HP: 200
Attack Bonus: +11 (two attacks and HWM bonus attack on crit)
Human Feat: Savage Attacker
B4 Feat/ASI: Con +2
R4 Feat/ASI: Defensive Duelist
F4 Feat/ASI: Tough
F6 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F8 Feat/ASI: Heavy Weapon Master
Totem Spirit: Bear
Trained Skills: Athletics, others not important
Expertise: Athletics, Acrobatics
Fighting Style: Dueling
Items: Rapier, Shield, (39) Healing Potions
Magic Items: Potion of Growth, Potion of Hill Giant Strength

Before combat starts, chug your two super-potions to shoot your Str to 21, to get advantage on Str based ability checks, and to get +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. These potions last for 1 and 2.5 hours respectively, but I doubt this combat will last that long.

Start of combat, you have a 57.25% chance of going first. If you go first, you take 0 damage before acting; if they go first, you take an average of 5.96 damage (taking into account the potential use of your reaction on either Defensive Duelist or Uncanny Dodge). Averaging everything together (and rounding for simplicity), you take 3 points of damage before you go.

With advantage on Str-based ability checks and a +17 Athletics bonus, and with the enemy having a +4 Athletics/Acrobatics bonus, they have a 3.0625% chance to not be prone and grappled at the end of your attack sequence; use one attack to Shove them prone, and the other to initiate a grapple once they're prone. As a bonus action, activate your rage.

They have about a 1/80 chance of escaping the grapple, escaping takes up the non-movement portion of their action, so they won't get to attack even if they escape, and they'll get easily recaptured next turn anyway. Thus, their best option for the moment is to attack every round. Between my AC, Defensive Duelist, Uncanny Dodge, resistance to Force damage, and disadvantage on the attack roll, their average DPR against me is 1.105734375, at least until I don't have any rage left. That means that they deal 20 rounds of that, and then all rounds after that deal no-rage-reduction damage (2.21146875 damage). If I wait until my rage is over to use my Second Wind and my Healing Potions, I'll have an effective 486.5 HP, meaning they kill me in 229.98954...let's call it 230 rounds.

1 round of that will be raging with my bonus action and using my Action Surge; 18 rounds of that is raging with my bonus action; 1 round of that is raging without my bonus action; 40 rounds of that is without bonus action or rage bonuses, and the other 170 are with my bonus action. I'll be using my Savage Attacker feat and my Sneak Attack bonus dice on the first attack to hit every round.

Rage On, Bonus Action Available, Action Surge Used: 1 round (87.70251341 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Available: 18 rounds (52.21594028 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Unavailable: 1 round (46.75136928 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Available: 170 rounds (47.95004228 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Unavailable: 40 rounds (43.11136928 average DPR)

Total Damage before Death: 10950.30276653 damage

Yeah, that's about what I was expecting: my Fighter (Champion) 12/Rogue (Thief) 5 build did miles better, because of the extra attack per round and the extra point of AC; maybe they could do even better if I traded away something for Savage Attacker. Oh well...now I'm going to go figure out what the winner of this challenge would be if I was 20th level and had up to two magic items of each rarity level. Later everybody!

Good point.

Warforged assasin 11, BM fighter 6

Expertise (stealth, athletics), skulker, mobile

Instead of a bag of holding he has an ever smoking bottle.

On turn one he pins the creature (action surge, expeetise in athletics). He then uncorks the bottle and waits till the entire arena is full of smoke (total obscurement).

He proceeds to take the Hide action (minimum check result 27). This beats the creatures passive perception.

He moves in and attacks from hiding, moving away (no AOO) and re-hiding every turn.

He takes short rests in the smoke as needed.

[AvatarVecna]

Good point.

Warforged assasin 11, BM fighter 6

Expertise (stealth, athletics), skulker, mobile

Instead of a bag of holding he has an ever smoking bottle.

On turn one he pins the creature (action surge, expeetise in athletics). He then uncorks the bottle and waits till the entire arena is full of smoke (total obscurement).

He proceeds to take the Hide action (minimum check result 27). This beats the creatures passive perception.

He moves in and attacks from hiding, moving away (no AOO) and re-hiding every turn.

He takes short rests in the smoke as needed.

Despite all logic to the contrary, this is actually worse than not using the bottle. Sadly, there's no such thing as total concealment anymore, only this "heavily obscured" crap. Anybody trying to target a creature that is heavily obscured acts as if Blinded (as the condition). The blinded condition gives the blinded person disadvantage to attack others, and gives others advantage to attack them. However, since you are also in the heavily obscured area, and have no more ability to see through it than your opponent, both of you suffer the effects. Both of you have advantage and disadvantage to hit each other, which means that all the advantage and disadvantage cancels out and nobody has either, even though both of you had multiple sources of one. So now, instead of hitting him with advantage and him having disadvantage to hit you, now you're both just rolling normally. Oh yeah, and because something is giving you disadvantage, even though that disadvantage is canceled out by other sources of advantage, you can't make sneak attacks at all.

Yes, I know, this is total bull****. RAW is weird and silly sometimes, but it's still the rules.

[Malifice]

Despite all logic to the contrary, this is actually worse than not using the bottle. Sadly, there's no such thing as total concealment anymore, only this "heavily obscured" crap. Anybody trying to target a creature that is heavily obscured acts as if Blinded (as the condition). The blinded condition gives the blinded person disadvantage to attack others, and gives others advantage to attack them. However, since you are also in the heavily obscured area, and have no more ability to see through it than your opponent, both of you suffer the effects. Both of you have advantage and disadvantage to hit each other, which means that all the advantage and disadvantage cancels out and nobody has either, even though both of you had multiple sources of one. So now, instead of hitting him with advantage and him having disadvantage to hit you, now you're both just rolling normally. Oh yeah, and because something is giving you disadvantage, even though that disadvantage is canceled out by other sources of advantage, you can't make sneak attacks at all.

Yes, I know, this is total bull****. RAW is weird and silly sometimes, but it's still the rules.

You're missing the fact I take the Hide action.

It can't shoot me at all when I'm hidden. The best it can do is target a square at random.

On my turn (once hidden) I advance up to it (in total obscurement, and hidden) Attack it (if I miss I stay hidden thanks to Skulker) and then move away (no AOO thanks to mobile) and use my bonus action to Hide again (if I hit it).

[Malifice]

Is the new Ranger allowed?

[Ralanr]

Is the new Ranger allowed?

I think it's too late.

[AvatarVecna]

You're missing the fact I take the Hide action.

If you use the Hide action, and succeed in Hiding, you are Hidden. According to the Hide Action, this means you gain certain benefits as described under the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section. The rules don't seem to specify from there whether an attacker merely has disadvantage to attack a hidden foe (since you count as "heavily obscured" while hiding) or whether they have to actually guess what square the person is in. Regardless, this foe won't depend entirely on such easily predictable and obviously terrible tactics; once they catch onto how pointless firing off blindly is (and with Int 18 and Wis 18, that's likely to be very quick), they will instead ready their action to attack you when you skulk towards them every round. Yes, it's an attack that uses their reaction, but it's not an Attack of Opportunity, so Mobile doesn't block it. It's not a perfect strategy, but it's better than firing blindly into the mist. And you still can't SA them.

[AvatarVecna]

I think it's too late.

It's not so much that it's "too late" as this was never really about a pure optimization contest.

[ImSAMazing]

I think it's too late.

Ill lengthen the contest with 4 days. Ranger Variant isn't allowed.

[Malifice]

If you use the Hide action, and succeed in Hiding, you are Hidden. According to the Hide Action, this means you gain certain benefits as described under the "Unseen Attackers and Targets" section. The rules don't seem to specify from there whether an attacker merely has disadvantage to attack a hidden foe (since you count as "heavily obscured" while hiding) or whether they have to actually guess what square the person is in. Regardless, this foe won't depend entirely on such easily predictable and obviously terrible tactics; once they catch onto how pointless firing off blindly is (and with Int 18 and Wis 18, that's likely to be very quick), they will instead ready their action to attack you when you skulk towards them every round. Yes, it's an attack that uses their reaction, but it's not an Attack of Opportunity, so Mobile doesn't block it. It's not a perfect strategy, but it's better than firing blindly into the mist. And you still can't SA them.

I'm hidden as I approach and until I make the attack. IF I miss, I remain hidden (skulker feat) and the creature still doesn't know where I am. I can walk away with impunity.

If I hit, my Attack is resolved, and then it gets a return Attack against me (as a reaction). Even if it hits I use uncanny dodge to halve the damage and walk away and use my bonus action to again hide. My minumim result is 27 so I auto succeed, hide and it no longer knows where I am.

It can take the search action to find me (auto fail at +4 perception) or it can randomly select a square to target.

I repeat this until I'm damaged enough and then I crawl behind cover (created with minor conjuration), wildshape into small monkey form and take total cover behind my 3' wall, take a short rest and heal.

The cover is just in case the creature luckily targets my square. As long as I move every turn, it's chances of targeting my square are 1/500 odd, I have my conjuration cover, uncanny dodge and it comes off my wild shape hit points anyway. It targets my square approx 2 x per hour. Still has to hit, and the damage comes off my wild shape hit points even if it does.

It needs a level of warlock so I can get a slot to heal per long rest, 2 levels of conjurer for minor conjuration, 11 levels of thief, a level of barbarian and 2 of Druid. Race - war forged.

Result - infinite damage.

[Malifice]

Ill lengthen the contest with 4 days. Ranger Variant isn't allowed.

Any issues with the stealth build above? You agree stealth works that way?

I can refine it.

[ImSAMazing]

Any issues with the stealth build above? You agree stealth works that way?

I can refine it.

Well, you can hide when the enemy can't see you clearly, but it doesn't give much. It indeed is smart, so it will ready attacks. After some time the cloud will move, or the Enemy walks out...

[Malifice]

Well, you can hide when the enemy can't see you clearly, but it doesn't give much. It indeed is smart, so it will ready attacks. After some time the cloud will move, or the Enemy walks out...

The enemy is pinned via an immovable rod anchored to an adamantine floor. It's going nowhere.

The cloud is permanent. It's an ever smoking bottle. There isn't any wind in the sealed arena I take it?

[AvatarVecna]

Result - infinite damage.

Skulker only keeps you hidden if your ranged attack misses, so it gets an attack against you every turn...that is, assuming you're attacking it in melee. Ranged attacks have their own issues, too, but the point is clear.

The cover will only hold up for a single attack with how thin it is, if that.

Taking a short rest gives this enemy 1200 attacks, taking a long rest gives them 3600. Sure, it's got disadvantage, and sure, it's gonna have to guess the square if you're at ranged, but resting requires relaxation, so constantly pacing around on the lookout for attacks is hardly a good way to relax. During a short rest, you could argue that you'll move just a little bit if his sweeping attacks get close to you, but during a long rest? That warforged goes offline for 4 hours; odds are you'll get targeted by a more than decent number of those attacks, and some will hit. Your rest has been interrupted by your being damaged.

Final point that's about the in-game stuff, and this one is more of an issue for you than anyone else, since nobody else really has a plan that takes long rests into account: he can target magic items. They're resistant to force damage, and they probably have a decent number of HP, but they're only, ultimately, a metal rod and a brass bottle. They won't be that hard to destroy, given a bit of time and effort. Of course, it's generally far more efficient to attack the person attacking them, but against someone like you? Your build is built around being able to hide, and your only way of doing that is by making use of a couple magic items. If you're hiding in the mist, only darting out to attack every round before retreating, he'll switch to Readied actions; if you resort to ranged attacks, since you know what square he's in, he'll resort to attacking the magic items until there's no more smoke and no more immovable rods. That tactic is less appropriate when there's somebody in your face hitting you over and over, but against somebody just darting out and plinking at him? Best to nip the real problem in the bud.

EDIT: Unless the enemy is literally incapable of hitting you, ever, there is no such thing as infinite damage (well, there's one, but it got nerfed early on to not count as infinite damage).

[ImSAMazing]

Skulker only keeps you hidden if your ranged attack misses, so it gets an attack against you every turn...that is, assuming you're attacking it in melee. Ranged attacks have their own issues, too, but the point is clear.
<Snip>


True. After some time, the enemy will have destroyed the magic items. This will be done after(let's say the magic items have 500HP) 500 / 15(15*2/2) = 33 1/3 rounds.

[AvatarVecna]

True. After some time, the enemy will have destroyed the magic items. This will be done after(let's say the magic items have 500HP) 500 / 15(15*2/2) = 33 1/3 rounds.

And even that's pretty generous. Again, it's a 1lb brass bottle and 2 ft long iron rod. They're resistant to all damage...but 500 HP is generous.

[Malifice]

Skulker only keeps you hidden if your ranged attack misses, so it gets an attack against you every turn...that is, assuming you're attacking it in melee. Ranged attacks have their own issues, too, but the point is clear.

The cover will only hold up for a single attack with how thin it is, if that.

Taking a short rest gives this enemy 1200 attacks, taking a long rest gives them 3600. Sure, it's got disadvantage, and sure, it's gonna have to guess the square if you're at ranged, but resting requires relaxation, so constantly pacing around on the lookout for attacks is hardly a good way to relax. During a short rest, you could argue that you'll move just a little bit if his sweeping attacks get close to you, but during a long rest? That warforged goes offline for 4 hours; odds are you'll get targeted by a more than decent number of those attacks, and some will hit. Your rest has been interrupted by your being damaged.

Final point that's about the in-game stuff, and this one is more of an issue for you than anyone else, since nobody else really has a plan that takes long rests into account: he can target magic items. They're resistant to force damage, and they probably have a decent number of HP, but they're only, ultimately, a metal rod and a brass bottle. They won't be that hard to destroy, given a bit of time and effort. Of course, it's generally far more efficient to attack the person attacking them, but against someone like you? Your build is built around being able to hide, and your only way of doing that is by making use of a couple magic items. If you're hiding in the mist, only darting out to attack every round before retreating, he'll switch to Readied actions; if you resort to ranged attacks, since you know what square he's in, he'll resort to attacking the magic items until there's no more smoke and no more immovable rods. That tactic is less appropriate when there's somebody in your face hitting you over and over, but against somebody just darting out and plinking at him? Best to nip the real problem in the bud.

I know what square it's in. I can stand 10 feet away and shoot it at my lesure.

If I hit it (and it has a readied action to shoot back) it can use it's reaction to Attack me (and I can uncanny dodge it if it hits) and the damage comes off my wild shape HP anyway. I'm thinking being in Ape form so I can use a bow.

The cover holds up depending on what I make it out of. Some light weight force resistant material works. Failing that Its good to absorb at least one hit before being destroyed.

Not that it matters. Assuming a 24*24 square arena (528 squares) 1200 attacks generates roughly 2 hits per short rest. Seeing as this only damages my wild shape form (that I stay in as I rest) and wild shape refreshes on a short rest, I could just assume brown bear form and curl up for a 1 hour rest.

We're allowed to spam spell slots to heal on wild shaped form, and I have a slot that regenerates on a short rest (if my real hit points get reduced).

[Malifice]

True. After some time, the enemy will have destroyed the magic items. This will be done after(let's say the magic items have 500HP) 500 / 15(15*2/2) = 33 1/3 rounds.

How is it destroying the immovable rod?

It has the Unbreakable minor quality from page 143 of the DMG (doesn't affect its rarity).

[AvatarVecna]

Skulker works with Melee attacks too. A hidden creature with skulker can walk up (in concealment) to its mark, Attack and miss, and walk away with the mark none the wiser.

If I hit it (and it has a readied action) it can use it's reaction to Attack me (and I can uncanny dodge it if it hits) and the damage comes off my wild shape HP anyway. I'm thinking being in Ape form so I can use a finesse weapon for sneak Attack, but bear form works just as well.

And I quote:


Skulker
Prerequisite: Dexterity 13 or higher

You are expert at slinking through shadows. You gain the following benefits:
You can try to hide when you are lightly obscured from the creature from which you are hiding.
When you are hidden from a creature and miss it with a ranged weapon attack, making the attack doesn't reveal your position.
Dim light doesn't impose disadvantage on your Wisdom (Perception) checks relying on sight.


How is it destroying the immovable rod?

It has the Unbreakable minor quality from page 143 of the DMG (doesn't affect its rarity).

Item traits are variant rules, and as such are DM-dependent. A standard Immovable Rod is no more invulnerable to damage than any other magic item.

[Malifice]

Alternatively you could take the alert feat and skulker and have the eversmoking bottle on your person (unbreakable minor quality). For your second item take elven boots. As a rogue 11 with experise in stealth and perception you always know what sqare the creature is in (it can't hide from you thanks to your passive perception of 32) and it never knows where you are (stealth check of 32 at a minimum).

You can move on your turn, attack it and then use a bonus action to hide every single turn, or just move, dash and hide (keeping out of its movement range).

As a war forged (who don't tire or sleep) you could kite it for eternity.

I like thief 11/ Druid 6 so you can wild shape into a spider or bird. The creature now has 528*24 squares to randomly target (x, y, and z axis).

You should be able to long rest on the roof with virtual impunity.

[AvatarVecna]

Alternatively you could take the alert feat and skulker and have the eversmoking bottle on your person (unbreakable minor quality) and (via rogue 11 with experise in stealth and perception) always know what sqare the creature is in (it can't hide from you thanks to your pasdive perception of 32) and it never knows where you are (stealth 27 at minimum).

You can move on your turn, attack it and then use a bonus action to hide every turn, or just move, dash and hide (keeping out of its movement range).

As a war forged (who don't tire or sleep) you could kite it for eternity.

As mentioned, warforged shut down for 4 hours in this edition to take a long rest. I also like how your build and tactics history are rewritten on the fly whenever a new problem with your original "perfect infinite damage solution" comes up.

[Malifice]

As mentioned, warforged shut down for 4 hours in this edition to take a long rest. I also like how your build and tactics history are rewritten on the fly whenever a new problem with your original "perfect infinite damage solution" comes up.

Hmm sleep seems to be the big problem then.

Elves trance for 4 hours. I need Druid 8 to maintain wild shape form for those 4 hours

Druid 8/ rogue 5/ warlock 2/ fighter 2.

With alert feat my passive perception remains 32 so I always know where it is and its impossible for it to hide from me in the smoke.

My stealth score could be as low as 23 (if I roll a 1) so it's possible with a low enough roll I could be heard. I can hide at will as a bonus action so can re roll on a bad roll.

With 12000 odd squares for me to hide in (3D) 24*24*24 squares assuming a 120' diameter arena and trance I can rest for 10 hours on average before it guesses the correct square and possibly strikes me, and that should only attrit my wild shape HP anyways.

[ImSAMazing]

And I quote:





Item traits are variant rules, and as such are DM-dependent. A standard Immovable Rod is no more invulnerable to damage than any other magic item.
True. No minor properties.


Alternatively you could take the alert feat and skulker and have the eversmoking bottle on your person (unbreakable minor quality). For your second item take elven boots. As a rogue 11 with experise in stealth and perception you always know what sqare the creature is in (it can't hide from you thanks to your passive perception of 32) and it never knows where you are (stealth check of 32 at a minimum).

You can move on your turn, attack it and then use a bonus action to hide every single turn, or just move, dash and hide (keeping out of its movement range).

As a war forged (who don't tire or sleep) you could kite it for eternity.

I like thief 11/ Druid 6 so you can wild shape into a spider or bird. The creature now has 528*24 squares to randomly target (x, y, and z axis).

You should be able to long rest on the roof with virtual impunity.
You still need to sleep.

As mentioned, warforged shut down for 4 hours in this edition to take a long rest. I also like how your build and tactics history are rewritten on the fly whenever a new problem with your original "perfect infinite damage solution" comes up.
True.

Hmm sleep seems to be the big problem then.

Elves trance for 4 hours. I need Druid 8 to maintain wild shape form for those 4 hours

Druid 8/ rogue 5/ warlock 2/ fighter 2.

With alert feat my passive perception remains 32 so I always know where it is and its impossible for it to hide from me in the smoke.

My stealth score could be as low as 23 (if I roll a 1) so it's possible with a low enough roll I could be heard. I can hide at will as a bonus action so can re roll on a bad roll.

With 12000 odd squares for me to hide in (3D) 24*24*24 squares assuming a 120' diameter arena and trance I can rest for 10 hours on average before it guesses the correct square and possibly strikes me, and that should only attrit my wild shape HP anyways.

He knows you aren't in the air. In that way it is only 24*24. Or if you are in the air, he will scan it like a normal person would, layer for layer. He will find you in 24*24/2=288 rounds, because he isn't dumb. he will just shoot his ranged attacks until he hears an OUCH!

[Malifice]

True. No minor properties.


You still need to sleep.

True.


He knows you aren't in the air. In that way it is only 24*24. Or if you are in the air, he will scan it like a normal person would, layer for layer. He will find you in 24*24/2=288 rounds, because he isn't dumb. he will just shoot his ranged attacks until he hears an OUCH!

He'll almost certainly fail his perception check when using the search action 'scanning the air'.

With a roll of 10, expertise in stealth and a DEX of 20, my stealth check is on average 27 (32 when walking). The best he can get with perception is 24.

It's +17 stealth v +4 perception (passive 14). He's going to really struggle.

His only chance is to random target a square. Seeing as the entire arena is shrouded in smoke, he needs to randomly pick one of 24*24*24 squares (2/13824 chance per round, assuming 2 shots, one each at different squares).

That gives me about 5 hours per attack roll.

And I'll be in wild shape form for all those 5 hours (As a Druid 8 I have 2 x 4 hour duration wildshapes per short rest).

I assume spiders can stay on the roof or walls while sleeping and don't just fall off. They can naturally.

The wild shapes come back on short rests anyway.

Boots of spider climbing could be even better. That gives me 3,400 odd possible squares I can be in, and means I can take the full 11 in rogue (and guaranteeing me an unbeatable stealth check of 27).

2/3400 = I get 1 attack roll directed at me every 1700 rounds (just short of 1 every 3 hours).

[N810]

1. Ignoring the problems with this step presented below, how is your medium creature hiding behind a 3ft by 3ft barricade? Curling up into a ball? Gonna be awfully hard to make a new wall that way, especially without exposing some part of your body. And then you can't call it total cover.

2. Any wall you summon isn't going to be anchored into the ground, so it won't stand up well (heh) to any sort of physical force like an attack.

3. "But it's too heavy!" you cry in indignation, forgetting that the Minor Conjuration ability has a weight limit of 10 pounds. Iron weighs 491.55 pounds per cubic foot; since the largest area you can hide behind is 3 ft tall by 3 ft wide (since Minor Conjuration also has a dimension limitation), the thickness of your not-anchored-into-the-ground-at-all wall is .027 inches thick. To clarify, that's roughly the thickness of 9 sheets of paper. Forget ranged attacks: this flimsy, anorexic excuse for a wall will come crashing down just from trying to hold itself up. It's base isn't wide enough to support its weight, it's gonna fall basically instantly.



4. The Bag of Holding has a 500 lbs capacity limit. Even assuming the iron plating is negligible in terms of weight and space, Concrete has a density of 150 lb/cubic foot; assuming you build a structure just as covering as the last one, this one will be a whole .37 inches thick. That's right, a whole third of an inch. Once again, not really anchored into anything, although it's remarkably sturdy. "But I can make it anchored into the floor!" you cry out in indignation once more. I'll grant you that you could use mortar to glue it to the floor, but it won't be embedded. That's solid adamantine under your feet there; you can't even burrow through that stuff, much less chip enough away with your tools to embed your wall in the floor.

5. And since the first wall fell under it's own weight, you have no cover while building your second wall. You are now full of holes, or you will be, anyway. Sure, he's got disadvantage on the attack roll, and sure, you've got Uncanny Dodge to save you if he hits, but that's still a good bit of damage when it hits, and it's going to whittle you down...assuming he targets you, of course. If he does target you, he'll kill you pretty quickly; that wild shape healing will only get you so far before he's whittling your HP down to 0, and you won't have enough time to take so much as a short rest, much less a long one.

6. He'll probably just target that wannabe wall you're in the process of building, and the bricks you're using to build that wall. Any individual brick is gonna be tough to break, as is the wall...but force damage could do it, and those bricks don't have Uncanny dodge to save their butts. How long before your brick supply is just so much dust?One final build from me. It's not an official submission, it's more for my own amusement.

Race: Variant Human
Class: Barbarian (Totem) 4/Rogue (Thief) 5/Fighter (Champion) 8
Stats (Lvl 1): 14/16/16/8/10/8
Stats (Lvl 17): 14/16/20/8/10/8
AC: 20
HP: 200
Attack Bonus: +11 (two attacks and HWM bonus attack on crit)
Human Feat: Savage Attacker
B4 Feat/ASI: Con +2
R4 Feat/ASI: Defensive Duelist
F4 Feat/ASI: Tough
F6 Feat/ASI: Con +2
F8 Feat/ASI: Heavy Weapon Master
Totem Spirit: Bear
Trained Skills: Athletics, others not important
Expertise: Athletics, Acrobatics
Fighting Style: Dueling
Items: Rapier, Shield, (39) Healing Potions
Magic Items: Potion of Growth, Potion of Hill Giant Strength

Before combat starts, chug your two super-potions to shoot your Str to 21, to get advantage on Str based ability checks, and to get +1d4 damage on weapon attacks. These potions last for 1 and 2.5 hours respectively, but I doubt this combat will last that long.

Start of combat, you have a 57.25% chance of going first. If you go first, you take 0 damage before acting; if they go first, you take an average of 5.96 damage (taking into account the potential use of your reaction on either Defensive Duelist or Uncanny Dodge). Averaging everything together (and rounding for simplicity), you take 3 points of damage before you go.

With advantage on Str-based ability checks and a +17 Athletics bonus, and with the enemy having a +4 Athletics/Acrobatics bonus, they have a 3.0625% chance to not be prone and grappled at the end of your attack sequence; use one attack to Shove them prone, and the other to initiate a grapple once they're prone. As a bonus action, activate your rage.

They have about a 1/80 chance of escaping the grapple, escaping takes up the non-movement portion of their action, so they won't get to attack even if they escape, and they'll get easily recaptured next turn anyway. Thus, their best option for the moment is to attack every round. Between my AC, Defensive Duelist, Uncanny Dodge, resistance to Force damage, and disadvantage on the attack roll, their average DPR against me is 1.105734375, at least until I don't have any rage left. That means that they deal 20 rounds of that, and then all rounds after that deal no-rage-reduction damage (2.21146875 damage). If I wait until my rage is over to use my Second Wind and my Healing Potions, I'll have an effective 486.5 HP, meaning they kill me in 229.98954...let's call it 230 rounds.

1 round of that will be raging with my bonus action and using my Action Surge; 18 rounds of that is raging with my bonus action; 1 round of that is raging without my bonus action; 40 rounds of that is without bonus action or rage bonuses, and the other 170 are with my bonus action. I'll be using my Savage Attacker feat and my Sneak Attack bonus dice on the first attack to hit every round.

Rage On, Bonus Action Available, Action Surge Used: 1 round (87.70251341 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Available: 18 rounds (52.21594028 average DPR)
Rage On, Bonus Action Unavailable: 1 round (46.75136928 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Available: 170 rounds (47.95004228 average DPR)
Rage Off, Bonus Action Unavailable: 40 rounds (43.11136928 average DPR)

Total Damage before Death: 10950.30276653 damage

Yeah, that's about what I was expecting: my Fighter (Champion) 12/Rogue (Thief) 5 build did miles better, because of the extra attack per round and the extra point of AC; maybe they could do even better if I traded away something for Savage Attacker. Oh well...now I'm going to go figure out what the winner of this challenge would be if I was 20th level and had up to two magic items of each rarity level. Later everybody!


After using the immoveable rod,
Couldn't you just tie him up take his weapons and then attack with a pole arm from beyond his range ?
Or use D&D's version of superglue to restrain him.
if that isn't enough, blindfold him and deafen him with earmuffs.

[AvatarVecna]

After using the immoveable rod,
Couldn't you just tie him up take his weapons and then attack with a pole arm from beyond his range ?
Or use D&D's version of superglue to restrain him.

1. The Immovable Rod is about the same as tying him up.

2. He's punching and sending out bullets of pure force, when he himself is made of pure force. He has no weapons to take.

3. D&D's magic super glue is a legendary item, which is not available during this contest.

[Malifice]

After using the immoveable rod,
Couldn't you just tie him up take his weapons and then attack with a pole arm from beyond his range ?
Or use D&D's version of superglue to restrain him.

He could damage the rod or simply push the button and free himself anyway.

[N810]

Yea the restraints was for his hands and feet*. the rod was for the rest of him. :smallamused:

*(So he can't attack back)

[AvatarVecna]

He could damage the rod or simply push the button and free himself anyway.

The idea with the rod is and always has been putting it in the small of their back. Attacking it is a legitimate option, but it's far more efficient (generally speaking) to attack the dude stabbing your face with a sword than it is to destroy the rod keeping you held down. The button can't be pushed where it is, and attacking it instead of the dude locked in the arena with you is only a good idea if that dude is hiding in the fog. Otherwise, those bullets of force are coming after you.

[Malifice]

Well Ive figured I can stay hidden (stealth 27-37) in a permanent smoke cloud. And that I can last an average of around 3 hours per attack roll directed at me. Combined with wild shape temp HP and 2 1st level slots per hour to heal with (warlock slots spammed in wild shape) Its statistically almost impossible for it to kill me.

It can't hide from me (passive perception 32 thanks to expertise and alert feat).

I should be able to approach it (hidden) at will. Attack it and then withdraw (using mobile feat) and then hide again (cunning action) when the wild shape HP get too low.

Then recover wild shape HP from a short rest and heal any meat damage via warlock slots in wild shape.

[Ralanr]

Well Ive figured I can stay hidden (stealth 27-37) in a permanent smoke cloud. And that I can last an average of around 3 hours per attack roll directed at me. Combined with wild shape temp HP and 2 1st level slots per hour to heal with (warlock slots spammed in wild shape) Its statistically almost impossible for it to kill me.

It can't hide from me (passive perception 32 thanks to expertise and alert feat).

I should be able to approach it (hidden) at will. Attack it and then withdraw (using mobile feat) and then hide again (cunning action) when the wild shape HP get too low.

Then recover wild shape HP from a short rest and heal any meat damage via warlock slots in wild shape.

How would you see it through the smoke cloud if it can't see you?

[Malifice]

How would you see it through the smoke cloud if it can't see you?

Unless it takes the hide action I know approx where it is (it's square). I can hear it as it's making no effort (hide action) to be quiet. If it takes the hide action, my passive perception is 32 (expertise in perception plus 5 from the alert feat) so it fails and I can still hear it to know what square it's in.

[Ralanr]

Unless it takes the hide action I know approx where it is (it's square). I can hear it as it's making no effort (hide action) to be quiet. If it takes the hide action, my passive perception is 32 (expertise in perception plus 5 from the alert feat) so it fails and I can still hear it to know what square it's in.

So it is a, "I know it's in this general area" sort of deal.

Wait how can you have a short rest? It's in the middle of combat is it not? Wouldn't you be surrendering if you retreat to have a short rest?

Or is this just because the basics of the rules are, "How much damage you do before death"?

[numerek]

I edited my previous post switched fighting styles and took into account it hitting my pre defensive duelist ac twice in a round http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=19800402&postcount=91 (barbarian 15 fighter 2 build)

new damage total is 25478.7075

[Malifice]

So it is a, "I know it's in this general area" sort of deal.

With a Passive perception of 32 v its Stealth of +4, I always know what square it's in. It literally cannot hide from me.


Wait how can you have a short rest? It's in the middle of combat is it not? Wouldn't you be surrendering if you retreat to have a short rest?

Im not 'in combat'. Im more or less ignoring it, and moving slowly occasionally if I notice it engage in a pattern of shooting. It poses me no actual harm.

There is no restiction on not resting while a creature is about. I wildshape into spider form (or just use my boots of spider walking) and walk up the walls to the roor or whatever (using stealth to hide in the smoke as I go - Steath result minimum 27 - making me hidden and impossible for the creature to target.

From there I close my eyes and trance of rest for an hour, while the creature has no idea what square I am in. It's only option is to scan for me (take the Search action, which it automatically fails thanks to my Stealth of 27), or to randomly target a square to shoot in (it shoots twice, so it can target 2 squares per turn).

If I notice it using any kind of pattern to its shooting, I move and resume my rest elsewhere accordingly.

Based on 24x24 squares on the floor x 6 for a cubic arena (walls and ceiling), means I get around 3 hours before it guesses correctly and targets my square (and actually gets an attack roll).

Basically its shooting darts of force, trying to hit a spider that hides from it (and it cant see) inside a 120'x120'x120' cube. 1 attack roll per 3 hours is actually pretty generous.

That single attack per 3 hours (assuming it hits) targets my wild shape HP (not my acual HP) and is recovered anyway thanks to my Warlock levels granting me 2 slots every short rest that I can (thanks to being a Druid) spam for healing while Wild shaped. Wild Shape HP also regenerate every hour (thanks to wild shape coming back on a short rest).

I'm effectively immune to its attacks (although statistically it may 'choose' the correct square in random sequence enough times in a row to actually kill me before an hour of rest passes - although this is statistically so improbable, it would take an average of billions of years to eventuate).

TL;DR - once wild shape HP diminish, I use my action to disengage, move and then cunning action to hide. Under the cover of stealth (and now in spider form) I move up the walls to the roof or the middle of the walls, or the floor somewhere (keeping a keen ear on the force creature) and start to chill out.

The creature cant find me no matter how hard it looks, and is forced to blast away randomly. Statistically I get around 3 hours in between getting my square actually targetted, which is more than enough time to short rest, recover warlock spells, shut down for an hour or two, recover wild shape uses, heal using those warlock slots via wild shape etc.

It's a tortured existence, but I could continue like this indefinately (as a warforged, thats a long time indeed).

[AvatarVecna]

If the immovable rod thing works

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=553401

15 barbarian 2 fighter
variant human
rapier shield +1 39 healing potions
defensive duelist
dueling fighting style
Action surge
second wind
mariner style
Unarmored defense
feral instincts
brutal critical +2 dice
relentless rage
persistent rage doesn't end
proficient athletics
Totem spirit 3rd level bear(resistance to force), 14th level wolf(bonus action prone)
14 str 16+4 dex 16+2 con 8 wis 10 int 8 cha
AC 10+5(dex)+4(con)+3(shield)+6(defensive duelist)=28, 22 after defensive duelist
197 HP
Do the rod thing first turn attack bonus action prone action surge immovable rod.
After that stab with the rapier, defensive duelist as necessary with resistance to force damage. healing potions as necessary
second wind and relentless rage will keep me in the fight for some extra rounds.

In order for him to hit me without duelist to defend me he needs to roll above 11 on all 4 d20s there is a 4% chance of that otherwise hits me on a 18+ with disadvantage, so .0175*7 + .0025*15 + .04*7 + .0025*15=0.4775 damage per round
I give myself 479 effective hitpoints so 1916 turns - 40 turns 1003

my damage is ((4.5+7)*.99+(13.5)*.0975)*2=25.4025 a turn = 25478.7075

Editted removed mariner Added dueling, took into account it rolling above 11 on all 4 d20s this resulted in my damage being about half what it was.



You have a ~73% chance of going first. Good enough for our purposes, I guess; let's also ignore how you're both activating your rage and using your bonus action trip in the same round (let's say you activated rage prior to combat). The enemy is now pinned, and you've dealt them 29.0225 damage; this is your average DPR while raging (which you've only got 49 rounds left of, so best make it count).

Oh yeah, let's address that before continuing, because it warrants mentioning: Persistent Rage makes it so that your rage can't end early. This does not give it infinite duration, though, it just removes a couple ways the rage can be forcibly ended by circumstance. You have 5 rages and each gives 10 rounds of raging, so you've got 50. At that point, you lose 3 points of damage on every attack, and you're no longer resistant to force damage (since that's only active while you're raging). But until your rage is over, you deal that much damage every round, so by the end of your rage, you've dealt the enemy 1451.125 damage, 50 rounds worth.

Now, to walk you through the enemy's DPR while prone. On their first attack, there is a 79.75% chance that they'll miss altogether on the first attack, an 18% chance that they'll hit you in a way that costs you your Defensive Duelist reaction, and a 2.25% chance that they'll deal damage. Overall, their average damage on that first attack is .1875, taking the resistance into account; their second attack has an 18% chance of not having the Defensive Duelist reaction available, so now they just need to hit your AC 22, dealing an average of 1.5375 damage after resistance; the other 82% of the time, it's still available, and the attack deals that same average .1875 damage. Adding it all up together, the enemy's DPR while you're raging (and have resistance to force damage) is .618; over the course of those 50 rounds, this comes out to 30.9 HP they've taken away from you. You now have 477.5 HP left, once your healing stuff comes into play.

The enemy's damage, now unhindered by force resistance, shoots up...well, relatively. They're now dealing out 1.236 DPR, which will reduce you to 0 HP in 386.32...let's just call it 387 rounds you've got left to damage it. Unfortunately, your damage has been reduced due to having no more rage; even worse, 39 of those rounds, you have to spend your action chugging Red Bull to fuel up (your Second Wind costs you a bonus action, which you weren't using for offense anyway, so it doesn't cost you a round of attacking). That leaves you with 348 rounds to deal damage; with your non-rage DPR set to 23.5625, you deal another 8199.75 damage to the enemy before dropping to 0 HP.

What the hell, let's even assume that you saved one rage for the bitter end, and you've got Relentless Rage watching your back. With your Con mod, and proficiency, you have a +10 Con save, meaning the DC has to be 35 before you can't make it anymore. Fun fact: IIRC, nat 20s aren't auto-success on saves in this edition. The more you know! So yeah, that let's you survive another 5 attacks at the most, so you get two more turns to attack this guy, and with rage damage too! I think. Questionable logistics aside, you die 2 rounds later, and your final damage total is...

9708.92 damage!

*confetti cannon*

Yeah...without the force resistance lasting the whole time, this build isn't as effective as you've made it out to be. Combine that with a rather laissez-faire approach to the statistical analysis of Defensive Duelist's effect on the enemy's DPR, and it's no wonder your final number was so far off. Still, it's a pretty good build; it's not super-dependent on short-term buffs, and it's capable of using good tactics. So yeah, nice job! You nearly broke into the quintuple digit club.

[numerek]

Oh yeah, let's address that before continuing, because it warrants mentioning: Persistent Rage makes it so that your rage can't end early. This does not give it infinite duration, though, it just removes a couple ways the rage can be forcibly ended by circumstance.


Thank you for pointing out that persistent rage has the word early in its description. Obviously that invalidates the whole build because it was relying on rage the whole time.


The enemy is now pinned, and you've dealt them 29.0225 damage; this is your average DPR while raging (which you've only got 49 rounds left of, so best make it count).

At that point, you lose 3 points of damage on every attack, and you're no longer resistant to force damage (since that's only active while you're raging).


I was not counting the 3 points from rage because it is only added if you are using strength to attack and my strength modifier is +2 so it would only be +5 the same as my dexterity modifier +5 except that the rage bonus only applies to damage.



with your non-rage DPR set to 23.5625, you deal another 8199.75 damage to the enemy before dropping to 0 HP.

So the below equation is my dpr with or without rage, 4.5 is from rapier, 7 is 5 from dexterity 2 from dueling fighting style, 13.5 is 3 additional critical dice(1 for normal critical +2 for brutal critical) the normal weapon damage is included in the first have of the equation, .99 is chance to hit ac 14 with a +11 and advantage(the rules do not state the creatures ac so I did 10+4 from dexterity) .0975 is chance to critical with advantage, 2 is number of attacks per round
((4.5+7)*.99+(13.5)*.0975)*2=25.4025



Now, to walk you through the enemy's DPR while prone. On their first attack, there is a 79.75% chance that they'll miss altogether on the first attack, an 18% chance that they'll hit you in a way that costs you your Defensive Duelist reaction, and a 2.25% chance that they'll deal damage. Overall, their average damage on that first attack is .1875, taking the resistance into account; their second attack has an 18% chance of not having the Defensive Duelist reaction available, so now they just need to hit your AC 22, dealing an average of 1.5375 damage after resistance; the other 82% of the time, it's still available, and the attack deals that same average .1875 damage. Adding it all up together, the enemy's DPR while you're raging (and have resistance to force damage) is .618;

I'm not sure how you get .1875 on the first attack, 2% is at FLOOR(15/2)=7 which is .14 then the other .25% is at FLOOR(30/2)=15 which is .0375 which is total .1775 I'm guessing you didn't apply the FLOOR. for second attack I'll use your way 18%*20%*7=.252 plus 82%*.14=.1148 plus .0375 is total 0.5818 so my 4% logic was flawed but not by as much you claim.


So yeah, that let's you survive another 5 attacks at the most, so you get two more turns to attack this guy, and with rage damage too! I think. Questionable logistics aside, you die 2 rounds later, and your final damage total is...


I only added 2 hitpoints to my build to account for relentless rage. but those 2 hit points would last me 3 rounds since they only deal .5818 per round.

I am working on a new version of the build.

[numerek]

I tried to avoid this build do to mad issues but since persistent rage is not as cool as I thought here goes

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=553401

12 blade fiend warlock 4 thief rogue 1 barbarian
half elf
rapier shield +1 39 healing potions
defensive duelist - via ability score increase
rage - advantage on athletics
Unarmored defense - dex + con + shield for ac
Dark one's blessing - squish a hostile bug before the fight and get 14 temporary hit points
pact of blade
dark one's own luck - extra d10 on initiative or athletics
thirsting blade - two attacks with pact weapon
lifedrinker - +2 (charisma) damage with pact weapon
Fiendish Resilience - resistance to force
expert athletics - +13
2d6 sneak attack
cunning action + fast hands = bonus action immovable rod and healing potions
13 str 16+4 dex 16+2 con 8 wis 8 int 14 cha
AC 10+5(dex)+4(con)+3(shield)+6(defensive duelist)=28, 22 after defensive duelist
Hitpoints 17*4(constitution)+12(barbarian)+16*5(rogue&warlock)+39*7(healing potions)+14(dark one's blessing)=447

In the rules they let assassins have advantage first turn which they only get if they go first which I would say to be more fair would be that every player goes first in initiative otherwise I can use dark one's own luck on my initiative if I roll low.

First turn
I will have to bonus action rage first round and attack, the extra damage would be 10%*7+5%*15+40%*40%*7+60%*10%*7+5%*15=3.74 and my damage would be a little less that turn. I could shove with out advantage but I figured get the probability as high as possible that the shove will work.
Second turn
main action shove it prone +13 with advantage vs 4 plus dark one's own luck if not used on initiative bonus action use object on immovable rod.
Other turns
After that stab with the rapier, defensive duelist as necessary with resistance to force damage. healing potions with bonus action as necessary.

In order for him to hit me without duelist to defend me he needs to roll above 11 on all 4 d20s.
first attack 2% is at FLOOR(15/2)=7 which is .14 then the other .25% is at FLOOR(30/2)=15 which is .0375 which is total .1775.
second attack 18%*20%*7=.252 plus 82%*.14=.1148 plus .0375 which is total .4043
both attack total is .5818
443.26/.5818=762 rounds - 2 for first round and second round

since it is so easy to hit I will not sneak attack on first attack unless it is a critical
my damage is ((4.5+5(dexterity)+2(charisma))*.91+(4.5)*.0975)*2 +14*.0975+.9025*(7*.91+7*.0975)=29.53738125 a turn * 760 = 22448 + 20(estimate) for first round= 22468

Hopefully this build will pass the damage audit which I do appreciate.

if it does pass the audit I believe this is the highest as Jamesps hasn't updated his post since you pointed out the damage he takes per round is wrong, there is no way he can be taking less damage per round then my build. And I don't think the hiding in the smoke build works either.

Edited I have changed the damage I do per round to be attacking ac 18 but I stand by my calculations for how much damage it does to me per round until I am told why the 15 damage halved doesn't get rounded down to 7. Also fixed chain vs blade typo

[AvatarVecna]

Thank you for pointing out that persistent rage has the word early in its description. Obviously that invalidates the whole build because it was relying on rage the whole time.



I was not counting the 3 points from rage because it is only added if you are using strength to attack and my strength modifier is +2 so it would only be +5 the same as my dexterity modifier +5 except that the rage bonus only applies to damage.


So the below equation is my dpr with or without rage, 4.5 is from rapier, 7 is 5 from dexterity 2 from dueling fighting style, 13.5 is 3 additional critical dice(1 for normal critical +2 for brutal critical) the normal weapon damage is included in the first have of the equation, .99 is chance to hit ac 14 with a +11 and advantage(the rules do not state the creatures ac so I did 10+4 from dexterity) .0975 is chance to critical with advantage, 2 is number of attacks per round
((4.5+7)*.99+(13.5)*.0975)*2=25.4025



I'm not sure how you get .1875 on the first attack, 2% is at FLOOR(15/2)=7 which is .14 then the other .25% is at FLOOR(30/2)=15 which is .0375 which is total .1775 I'm guessing you didn't apply the FLOOR. for second attack I'll use your way 18%*20%*7=.252 plus 82%*.14=.1148 plus .0375 is total 0.5818 so my 4% logic was flawed but not by as much you claim.



I only added 2 hitpoints to my build to account for relentless rage. but those 2 hit points would last me 3 rounds since they only deal .5818 per round.

I am working on a new version of the build.

You're right about the rage bonus not applying to Dex-based attacks, I missed that. So your DPR the whole time is lower than I thought. As for their AC...I'm blaming Sam for this one. It was listed in the original thread as 18, but somehow that hasn't made it into the OP for this thread. Damn it Sam! *shakes fist* Anyway, that's the AC I've been using to calculate character DPR for when figuring out how much damage a person deals; while I'll admit that it's good to assume 14 when AC isn't listed, if your build assumes AC 14, then the other builds get to assume AC 14 as well. I imagine that, if you calculated your DPR while assuming AC 18, you'd get the number I was saying was correct.

As for the enemy DPR, I guess I'll have to go into a little bit more detail.

On the enemy's first attack, there is a 100% chance that they have to hit AC 28 to deal any damage. If they don't even hit AC 22, they deal 0 damage and don't cost you your reaction; if they hit AC 28 or higher, they deal damage and don't cost your reaction; if they hit AC 22-27, they deal 0 damage and cost you your reaction. Thus, since they have disadvantage, if they were to attack 400 times with that first attack, they would get 8 hits and 1 crit. Because you're resistant to force damage, they're dealing half damage, so that amounts to 400 first attacks dealing 75 damage in total ({8*7.5}+{1*15}). This means that their first attack would deal, on average, .1875 damage. Their second attack now either has to hit AC 28 (if you still have your reaction) or AC 22 (if you don't). There's an 82% chance you've still got your reaction. In those cases, they deal the same average .1875 they did on the first attack; in the last 18% of the second attack, their average damage is higher; they now get 80 hits and 1 crit in 400 attacks, totaling to 615 on 400 hits, or an average of 1.5375 per second hit if you don't have your reaction. Final equation: 100% chance the first attack deals avg. .1875, 82% chance the second attack deals avg. .1875, 18% chance the second attack deals avg. 1.5375; adding everything up, we get a total average DPR of .618 damage.

If the AC is lower than 18, then your overall damage is much higher...but so is everyone else's. And yes, I see your new build, but I can't audit it right now; it'll have to wait a few hours until after work. Also, I haven't delved deep enough into the arguments on the hiding rules to know for sure if the smoke build works or not, but I do know this: I'm the only one who's found a build that the OP wouldn't allow for being unfair to the other contestants. So even if I end up losing on the "measurable damage" part of the competition, I'll still know that I found the winning answer; literally infinite damage is funny that way.

I'll be back later today to take a look at your new build.

[AvatarVecna]

Also, you're using the word FLOOR, and I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm just using brute-force statistics to figure this stuff out.

[AvatarVecna]

I tried to avoid this build do to mad issues but since persistent rage is not as cool as I thought here goes

http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheet.html#id=553401

12 chain fiend warlock 4 thief rogue 1 barbarian
half elf
rapier shield +1 39 healing potions
defensive duelist - via ability score increase
rage - advantage on athletics
Unarmored defense - dex + con + shield for ac
Dark one's blessing - swish a hostile bug before the fight and get 14 temporary hit points
pact of chain
dark one's own luck - extra d10 on initiative or athletics
thirsting blade - two attacks with pact weapon
lifedrinker - +2 (charisma) damage with pact weapon
Fiendish Resilience - resistance to force
expert athletics - +13
2d6 sneak attack
cunning action + fast hands = bonus action immovable rod and healing potions
13 str 16+4 dex 16+2 con 8 wis 8 int 14 cha
AC 10+5(dex)+4(con)+3(shield)+6(defensive duelist)=28, 22 after defensive duelist
Hitpoints 17*4(constitution)+12(barbarian)+16*5(rogue&warlock)+39*7(healing potions)+14(dark one's blessing)=447

In the rules they let assassins have advantage first turn which they only get if they go first which I would say to be more fair would be that every player goes first in initiative otherwise I can use dark one's own luck on my initiative if I roll low.

First turn
I will have to bonus action rage first round and attack, the extra damage would be 10%*7+5%*15+40%*40%*7+60%*10%*7+5%*15=3.74 and my damage would be a little less that turn. I could shove with out advantage but I figured get the probability as high as possible that the shove will work.
Second turn
main action shove it prone +13 with advantage vs 4 plus dark one's own luck if not used on initiative bonus action use object on immovable rod.
Other turns
After that stab with the rapier, defensive duelist as necessary with resistance to force damage. healing potions with bonus action as necessary.

In order for him to hit me without duelist to defend me he needs to roll above 11 on all 4 d20s.
first attack 2% is at FLOOR(15/2)=7 which is .14 then the other .25% is at FLOOR(30/2)=15 which is .0375 which is total .1775.
second attack 18%*20%*7=.252 plus 82%*.14=.1148 plus .0375 which is total .4043
both attack total is .5818
443.26/.5818=762 rounds - 2 for first round and second round

since it is so easy to hit I will not sneak attack on attack hit unless it is a critical
my damage is ((4.5+5(dexterity)+2(charisma))*.99+(4.5)*.0975)*2 +14*.0975+.9025*(7*.99+7*.0975)=31.88278125 a turn * 760 = 24291 + 20(estimate) for first round= 24311

Hopefully this build will pass the damage audit which I do appreciate.

if it does pass the audit I believe this is the highest as Jamesps hasn't updated his post since you pointed out the damage he takes per round is wrong, there is no way he can be taking less damage per round then my build. And I don't think the hiding in the smoke build works either.Your Stats
AC: 22 (28 w/Defensive Duelist)
HP: 447
AB: +11
Hit Dmg: avg 18.5 w/SA (1d8+2d6+7), avg 11.5 w/o SA (1d8+7)
Crit Dmg: avg 30 w/ SA (2d8+4d6+7), Avg 16 w/o SA (2d8+7)

Their Stats
AC: 18
HP: infinite
AB: +10
Hit Dmg: 15 (7.5 vs you)
Crit Dmg: 30 (15 vs you)

Note 1: I'm going to assume you meant Pact of the Blade rather than Pact of the Chain, since you have 2 Bladelock invocations and no Chainlock invocations.

Note 2: Current calculations assume AC 18, since that's what it originally was. I won't be changing that unless Sam says this enemy's AC isn't 18...and if they do that, I'm going to have to recalculate my own build's damage as well, to take the lower AC into account (although I'll have a hard time keeping up with somebody resistant to force damage). That said, I did think of a way to get more survivability out of your build, and your damage would be still pretty comparable.

Note 3: If the first attack isn't a crit, I figured you'd want to use SA on the second attack even if it's just a hit.

Anyway, let's get calculating. Their DPR (once they're pinned to the ground) is .618 damage (explanation was provided for the barbarian build, since it had the same AC and force resistance); this kills you in 723 rounds or thereabout. You deal 29.53738125 DPR to them; thus, by the time the fight ends, you'll have dealt a total of 21355.52664375 damage.

I do believe that's currently winning, since it's facing the same AC mine faced and dealing more damage. Still, as mentioned, I've noticed a couple areas for potential improvement. As is always the case, if you'd like a more thorough explanation for where I'm getting these numbers, I'm more than willing to explain myself.

Nice build.

[numerek]

Also, you're using the word FLOOR, and I'm not sure what you're referring to. I'm just using brute-force statistics to figure this stuff out.

Floor is round down page 7 from the players hand book. so 15 with resistance is 7 not 7.5 which I think will give us the same damage calculation because they are pretty close right now. As for the ac I can do a quick recalculation against ac 18.

the chance to hit ac 18 with +11 to hit and advantage is 91%.

my damage is ((4.5+5(dexterity)+2(charisma))*.91+(4.5)*.0975)*2 +14*.0975+.9025*(7*.91+7*.0975)=29.53738125 a turn * 760 = 22448 + 20(estimate) for first round= 22468

We came up with the same number for my damage per turn yeah! and I think if you use 7 for its non-critical damage you will come out to the same number for its damage per turn.

As for the blade chain thing its probably because I actually play a pact of chain warlock. I will edit the build to fix blade vs chain.

[AvatarVecna]

Floor is round down page 7 from the players hand book. so 15 with resistance is 7 not 7.5 which I think will give us the same damage calculation because they are pretty close right now. As for the ac I can do a quick recalculation against ac 18.

the chance to hit ac 18 with +11 to hit and advantage is 91%.

my damage is ((4.5+5(dexterity)+2(charisma))*.91+(4.5)*.0975)*2 +14*.0975+.9025*(7*.91+7*.0975)=29.53738125 a turn * 760 = 22448 + 20(estimate) for first round= 22468

We came up with the same number for my damage per turn yeah! and I think if you use 7 for its non-critical damage you will come out to the same number for its damage per turn.

As for the blade chain thing its probably because I actually play a pact of chain warlock. I will edit the build to fix blade vs chain.

Awesome, my numbers are matching up as well. And the only way I can think of to make your build even tankier against this thing is to go Variant Human Warlock 10/Rogue 5/Barbarian 1/Fighter 1. You lose the Lifedrinker ability, but get it back in the form of the dueling fighting style; you also lose your Warlock 12 feat, but get it back in the Variant Human feat, so that's fine as well; your Cha is 2 points lower, but you don't need it anymore except for casting, which you don't care about here. In exchange for all these things you've "lost" (where you've actually gained more than you lost in those areas), you get 8 extra HP (including from Second Wind), you get an extra die of Sneak Attack, and you get the Uncanny Dodge ability, which lets you use your reaction to half a successful hits damage. The chances of your reaction being available against the second attack are slightly lower, but still fairly high, so the enemy's DPR becomes 0.43369375. Combine their lower DPR with your DPR increase to 33.40232188 and your total HP increase to 455, you now deal roughly 35000 damage to it before dying.

There's probably some weird stuff we can do with feats and ASIs to make it even tankier, but I think it would have to cut into the offense too much to help out in that department.

[ImSAMazing]

It stays at 18 AC.

[Naanomi]

Has anyone done the hand crossbow build yet? It would have less defenses but between archery style and sharpshooter I bet it would win in raw damage output per round

[numerek]

Awesome, my numbers are matching up as well. And the only way I can think of to make your build even tankier against this thing is to go Variant Human Warlock 10/Rogue 5/Barbarian 1/Fighter 1. You lose the Lifedrinker ability, but get it back in the form of the dueling fighting style; you also lose your Warlock 12 feat, but get it back in the Variant Human feat, so that's fine as well; your Cha is 2 points lower, but you don't need it anymore except for casting, which you don't care about here. In exchange for all these things you've "lost" (where you've actually gained more than you lost in those areas), you get 8 extra HP (including from Second Wind), you get an extra die of Sneak Attack, and you get the Uncanny Dodge ability, which lets you use your reaction to half a successful hits damage. The chances of your reaction being available against the second attack are slightly lower, but still fairly high, so the enemy's DPR becomes 0.43369375. Combine their lower DPR with your DPR increase to 33.40232188 and your total HP increase to 455, you now deal roughly 35000 damage to it before dying.

There's probably some weird stuff we can do with feats and ASIs to make it even tankier, but I think it would have to cut into the offense too much to help out in that department.

charisma can't go below 13 due to multiclassing rules, so variant human doesn't help, right now I am using 13 15 15 8 8 12 with 0 +1 +1 0 0 +2 from half elf there is no way for human variant to start with 16s in dex and con which are required for ac and 13 in strength and charisma which are required for multiclassing. Like I said this is the reason I tried to do the 15 barbarian build instead of this build which was originally 16 barbarian until I realized I needed action surge to pull off the immovable rod.
So going that way would have to result in ac going down by 1 and hitpoints going down by 17 for constitution or to hit and damage going down by 1 for dexterity. if you think the gains are worth it I can try redoing the build but 1 point of ac increases the damage taken per round by a lot. If it is better it certainly isn't by 10000 damage.

One nice thing about uncanny dodge + resistance is 15 would go to 3 because of rounding even if you divided the 15 straight by 4 and 30 goes to 7.

One way I thought of doing the build was 10 warlock 6 fighter 1 barbarian but the only thing that this really brings is full extra attack vs just attacking twice with pact weapon it affects round 2 which would now be round 1 with action surge. dueling replaces lifedrinker, second wind and critical hits at 19. but I now have to spend ~40 turns healing and have lost sneak attack damage which is significant, probably more than the extra critical damage. a minor advantage would be wouldn't need dexterity for multiclassing but since the build has a 20 in dexterity thats not really an advantage.

Another thing I thought of was going full plate as I am only getting 19 ac from unarmored and then I could use the defensive fighting style but I would either have to use one of my magic items for adamantine (which would result in 1 lower ac) or 1500gp which would result in 30 fewer healing potions.

[AvatarVecna]

charisma can't go below 13 due to multiclassing rules, so variant human doesn't help, right now I am using 13 15 15 8 8 12 with 0 +1 +1 0 0 +2 from half elf there is no way for human variant to start with 16s in dex and con which are required for ac and 13 in strength and charisma which are required for multiclassing. Like I said this is the reason I tried to do the 15 barbarian build instead of this build which was originally 16 barbarian until I realized I needed action surge to pull off the immovable rod.
So going that way would have to result in ac going down by 1 and hitpoints going down by 17 for constitution or to hit and damage going down by 1 for dexterity. if you think the gains are worth it I can try redoing the build but 1 point of ac increases the damage taken per round by a lot. If it is better it certainly isn't by 10000 damage.

One nice thing about uncanny dodge + resistance is 15 would go to 3 because of rounding even if you divided the 15 straight by 4 and 30 goes to 7.

One way I thought of doing the build was 10 warlock 6 fighter 1 barbarian but the only thing that this really brings is full extra attack vs just attacking twice with pact weapon it affects round 2 which would now be round 1 with action surge. dueling replaces lifedrinker, second wind and critical hits at 19. but I now have to spend ~40 turns healing and have lost sneak attack damage which is significant, probably more than the extra critical damage. a minor advantage would be wouldn't need dexterity for multiclassing but since the build has a 20 in dexterity thats not really an advantage.

Another thing I thought of was going full plate as I am only getting 19 ac from unarmored and then I could use the defensive fighting style but I would either have to use one of my magic items for adamantine (which would result in 1 lower ac) or 1500gp which would result in 30 fewer healing potions.

If you start with Warlock, you don't need 13 Cha to enter it. At that point, you only need Str 13 for Barbarian and Dex 13 for fighter and rogue. The rest of this is right on the money though. Also, I learned overnight that Savage attacker sucks for people with lots of dice.

EDIT: I just learned that Savage Attacker sucks even more than I already thought it did, because it turns out it only applies to weapon damage dice, not all damage dice.

[AvatarVecna]

Has anyone done the hand crossbow build yet? It would have less defenses but between archery style and sharpshooter I bet it would win in raw damage output per round

It would deal a great deal of damage, but it would die a lot quicker, and even the damage part is questionable.

Firstly, the thing people are using to give themselves advantage on every attack is using an immovable rod to keep the creature prone. However, that only grants you advantage if you're standing right next to it; if you're not standing next to it, you have disadvantage instead.

Secondly, Defensive Duelist, one of the best defensive buffs available against this enemy, is only active if you're wielding a finesse melee weapon when they hit you with a melee attack.

Thirdly, bonus dice get multiplied on a crit; flat bonuses do not.

If you have a more specific build in mind, we can run the numbers, but until you've got a full build, I can only run general numbers, and those don't look very good for you (15 damage per attack isn't very impressive around here, and that's all I can guarantee such a build would have unless I see a build that has more).

[Naanomi]

I don't have a real specific build in mind other than it being a fighter/rogue of some stripe... 18.5 average damage per attack, three attacks a round at -1 to, in addition to sneak attack damage... stand next to it so still have advantage, use rogue reaction to 1/2 damage from one attack a round... But you are probably right that this is not a super endurance build of the type needed in an infinite brawl, I'm just surprised no one has offered it since hand-crossbow is often touted as the king of mundane damage

[AvatarVecna]

I don't have a real specific build in mind other than it being a fighter/rogue of some stripe... 18.5 average damage per attack, three attacks a round at -1 to, in addition to sneak attack damage... stand next to it so still have advantage, use rogue reaction to 1/2 damage from one attack a round... But you are probably right that this is not a super endurance build of the type needed in an infinite brawl, I'm just surprised no one has offered it since hand-crossbow is often touted as the king of mundane damage

It's definitely the king of damage...against something with finite health. The problem is that it's great for killing things before they kill you (which is the best way to approach combat usually), and that's literally the opposite of what you need here: you need to survive as long as possible while still dealing decent damage. One of the other problems with the Hand Crossbow build is that it needs these two feats to deal decent damage, and you're only getting so many feats...and you need those for defensive purposes.

I can try and throw together a more complete build, but I can't promise it'll work wonders.

[Naanomi]

Never mind I ran some basic numbers and because I would only be hitting on a critical hit there is no benefit for taking sharpshooter above two handed weapon mastery; that 18 AC is brutal

[AvatarVecna]

Never mind I ran some basic numbers and because I would only be hitting on a critical hit there is no benefit for taking sharpshooter above two handed weapon mastery; that 18 AC is brutal

Please put it back; that build had a +9 attack bonus; it can hit on a 9. I'm running number calculations as we speak.

EDIT: Or I guess I could make my own...

[Naanomi]

Oh yeah +9 to hit, sharpshooter takes it down only yo +4 not -1... Dumb brain!

Champion 12/thief 5
Sharpshooter, toughness, hand crossbow mastery
Dex 20, Con 18
That's the build basically the rest is math and minimal tactics

[AvatarVecna]

Oh yeah +9 to hit, sharpshooter takes it down only yo +4 not -1... Dumb brain!

No, no, it's +9 after Sharpshooter. You have +5 from Dex, +6 from proficiency, +2 from the Archery fighting style, and +1 from the magic weapon. I think the items could be better optimized for this fight, but I'll address that after seeing how much damage it deals before dying.

[Naanomi]

You are of course correct... Yeesh I must be brain dead...

29.97 damage a round for basic attacks...
Add .2 per round for critical hits...
Add another 6.87 or so for sneak attack, including criticals

37.04 a round or so?

[numerek]

If you start with Warlock, you don't need 13 Cha to enter it. At that point, you only need Str 13 for Barbarian and Dex 13 for fighter and rogue. The rest of this is right on the money though. Also, I learned overnight that Savage attacker sucks for people with lots of dice.

EDIT: I just learned that Savage Attacker sucks even more than I already thought it did, because it turns out it only applies to weapon damage dice, not all damage dice.

That is a common misconception about multiclassing, read first sentence on page 163 of player's handbook under prerequisites. You need the stat requirement of both current class and new class. otherwise I wouldn't have needed 13 strength because I start as barbarian for the hit points, in which case that would have been sweet because I could have gone variant human and got constitution to 20 greatly reducing the amount of damage I took and got an extra 17 hit points. as it was I could have gone variant human and used an ability score increase on charisma or started with a lower constitution and put another ability score increase into constitution. but I figured if I could use another race then the commonly necessary variant human then I should go for it, I could have actually also done standard human

[AvatarVecna]

Oh yeah +9 to hit, sharpshooter takes it down only yo +4 not -1... Dumb brain!

Champion 12/thief 5
Sharpshooter, toughness, hand crossbow mastery
Dex 20, Con 18
That's the build basically the rest is math and minimal tactics


Assuming Full Plate, a +1 hand crossbow, the standard immovable rod trick, a shield (you can still load), 3 potions, and up to 50 GP of bolts, this build has AC 21 and 242 effective HP. Taking advantage of Uncanny Dodge and the enemy's disadvantage to hit, this means the build survives for 60 rounds. In the first round, you make no attacks (to guarantee the enemy is prone and locked down), and 4 of those rounds, you use your bonus action for self-healing, so you only get 3 attacks instead of 4. 1 of the remaining rounds, you can use your action surge.

Yes AS, Yes BA: 1 round (132.1899654 avg DPR)
No AS, Yes BA: 54 rounds (81.04656224 avg DPR)
No AS, No BA: 4 rounds (63.957264 avg DPR)

All together, you end up dealing 4764.533382 damage before dying.If we put the above build in Studded Leather instead of Plate, their AC goes down 1 point; if we change their +1 hand crossbow into a regular one, and their shield into a +1 shield, then AC is back at 21, accuracy is down a bit, and damage is down a bit. But now we have enough gold for 39 potions instead of just 3.

With these small changes, we have 122 rounds to live now. That gives us...

Yes AS, Yes BA: 1 round (120.9326359 avg DPR)
No AS, Yes BA: 81 rounds (74.6547051 avg DPR)
No AS, No BA: 40 rounds (59.14985543 avg DPR)

Now you deal 8533.957966 damage before dying. Yay!

[numerek]

If we put the above build in Studded Leather instead of Plate, their AC goes down 1 point; if we change their +1 hand crossbow into a regular one, and their shield into a +1 shield, then AC is back at 22, accuracy is down a bit, and damage is down a bit.

I don't see how that build would have 22 ac. 12(studded leather)+5(dexterity)+3(shield)+1(defense)=21 might have been a typo since you say back at and you say 21 above.

[AvatarVecna]

I don't see how that build would have 22 ac. 12(studded leather)+5(dexterity)+3(shield)+1(defense)=21 might have been a typo since you say back at and you say 21 above.

Yeah, typo. The numbers were run with AC 21, it adds up to 21...and I forgot basic math for half a second. I'll go fix it.

[numerek]

If your heavily obscured you are effectively blind, nothing about the perception skill says that you can hear people well enough to know where they are with the accuracy to target them. He could also be prone, crouching or in some sort of arched posture. I'm not sure how much damage an item that disappears as soon as it takes damage would do and it lights up a path to your location so I'm not sure that skulker would be much help. Depending on your builds strength it can only lug around so much weight. And your dpr is very low, minor conjuration takes a full action to get one bolt/arrow, archery as an ape is going to be much worse since it doesn't have a 20 dexterity or a 6 proficiency bonus on top of all your trancing and short resting. The beast that you turn into has to be able to physically do something that you could do if you are not in wild shape, I don't think any beasts have the ability to trance they physically need sleep. This ever smoking magic item would also be either displacing the oxygen or increasing the pressure in the dome plenty of people don't get burned by fires but still need medical attention due to smoke inhalation.

[Malifice]

If your heavily obscured you are effectively blind, nothing about the perception skill says that you can hear people well enough to know where they are with the accuracy to target them.

What? That's exactly what perception does. Perception is 3.x spot and listen. Your perception is opposed by the stealth score result of your opponent to locate them.


He could also be prone, crouching or in some sort of arched posture.

He could be trying to be totally quiet. I.e. taking the Hide action. He rolls Stealth and compares it to my passive perception.

He always fails. I can always hear (or otherwise perceive) him.

Are you saying that I can always find him when he tries to hide from me, but if he doesn't attempt to hide, I cant find him?


The beast that you turn into has to be able to physically do something that you could do if you are not in wild shape, I don't think any beasts have the ability to trance they physically need sleep.

Huh? So ill sleep then. Nothing in a long rest tells me that I need 8 hours uninterrupted sleep.

Spiders dont fall off walls when sleeping.


This ever smoking magic item would also be either displacing the oxygen or increasing the pressure in the dome plenty of people don't get burned by fires but still need medical attention due to smoke inhalation.

Once the room has enough smoke/ fog then I can turn it off for a bit, keeping the smoke/ fog at a decent level.