New to Min/Max and need help.

[urawhat]

My DM likes being thrown curve balls, especially when the group takes an interest in making their character as good as possible. I would really enjoy some suggestions for powerful builds that my group can throw at our DM. We usually start at level 5. All playtest material is allowed along with any amount of multiclassing.

Thanks in advance.

[Specter]

Would you be interested in damage, tanking, controlling enemies, buffing...?

[KorvinStarmast]

I recommend Tars Tarkas, from the Barsoom / John Carter of Mars stories.
PWNAGE.

[urawhat]

I'm thinking mainly high damage output. Our DM tossed a tarrasque at us because we screwed up something small...

[urawhat]

I recommend Tars Tarkas, from the Barsoom / John Carter of Mars stories.
PWNAGE.
Do you have a link? Im not familiar with this.

[CaptainSarathai]

What level are you guys starting at, and what level are you playing to? It will make a difference, as some Multiclass options are really good, buy don't "come online" until much later on, and are vulnerable until then.
Other stuff, like dual wielding, is far better early on, and then loses it's edge after a point.

Also, your DM kinda sounds like a jerk; Terrasque Hunting is not something to be taken lightly. They're a very hard fight, even at 20th level.

[MxKit]

(Credit to GladiusLegis and their awesome Handbook of the True Assasin guide for this idea! Other alternate AWESOME ASSASSIN builds can be found there, but this is my favored build and I wanted to outline why myself, so I didn't want to just drop a link. Check it out if you want to come up with your own Awesome Assassin recipe, though!)

I think you could get a pretty majorly Min/Maxed character by level 8 if you go for a Fighter 2/Rogue 3/Warlock 3 combo with a Bugbear character. Start with your first level in Fighter, and dump Strength for Dex of course. The reason I say this is...


The 1st level of Fighter gets you the Two-Weapon Fighting Style (want to hit twice instead of once and apply your damage modifier to both hits? just use light weapons!), and the 2nd gives you Action Surge, which gives you one additional action every short or long rest -- not quite an extra attack every turn yet, but good enough!
The 3rd level of Rogue gets you a Sneak Attack of 2d6, which you can use every turn that you have advantage and are using a finesse or ranged weapon (and you get really good light and finesse weapons if you start with your first level in Fighter). And since of course you're taking the Assassin subclass, you'll also get Assassinate, which gives you that much-needed advantage on attack rolls against any enemy that hasn't taken a turn in combat yet, and any hit you land is a critical hit if the target is surprised.
You said all playtest material is allowed? Well, that means you can used Unearthed Arcana: Revised Class Options, which is great, because it means the 3rd level of Warlock, if you go Pact of the Blade (of course you go Pact of the Blade), you get the Improved Pact Weapon Invocation (+1 to both attack and damage rolls with your Pact Weapon) and the Maddening Hex Invocation (as a bonus action, deal damage equal to your Charisma mod to the target of your Hex spell and every creature within 5 feet of them). Oh, also, you get to cast Hex, so you deal an extra 1d6 of necrotic damage every time you hit the target of your Hex spell with any attack. For an hour. And you can switch the Hex to a different person as a bonus action if the first target dies, without expending another spell slot, so long as it's within that hour timeframe. And also? You get to cast Invisibility.
Oh yeah, and since you're playing that Bugbear character, your ability score increases might not be the best (+1 to Dex is good, but +2 to Str isn't too hot since it'd be a dump stat anyway), but you get automatic proficiency in Stealth, and an amazing racial trait in Surprise Attack, which is only usable once per combat, but verbatim: "If you surprise a creature and hit it with an attack on your first turn in combat, the attack deals an extra 2d6 damage to it." That initial assassin strike? Even more deadly now.

So on your first turn in combat, if you've gotten advantage on your attack roll and surprised your enemy, which you should have since you're stealthy as all hell and have Invisibility if all else fails, with your awesome Pact of the Blade scimitar, you will be dealing 10d6, plus your Dexterity modifier, plus 1 more, in damage. With your slightly less awesome but still pretty awesome backup scimitar, you'll be making a bonus attack that does an extra 1d6 + Dex mod damage on top of that.

Is it still not dead? Use Action Surge to get in two more 1d6 + Dex mod attacks (one of them with that extra +1 to damage, too). Did it die? Go ahead and cast either Hex or Invisibility next turn. Invisibility will only last until you attack again, but that's fine, you can get a nice 6d6 + Dex mod + 1 / 1d6 + Dex mod attack off with it (maybe with Action Surge if you haven't used it yet). Hex may be even better, since you can start attacking for 3d6 + Dex mod + 1 / 3d6 + Dex mod, OR 3d6 + Dex mod + 1 / straight up your Charisma mod to your target and everyone within 5 feet of them, every single turn for the entire rest of combat. More, if you can get someone else to cast Invisibility on you for you!

And this build just gets even more insanely powerful as you go up in level. Honestly:


If you go further up the Fighter tree, take Battle Master and give your character Trip Attack at the very least! Distracting Strike is also great since it gives one of your buddies advantage on attacking the same enemy you just did. But if you can knock an enemy prone, you get yet another attack with advantage in there, which gives you yet another easy turn of Sneak Attack damage. And if you go up to Fighter Level 5 you get just a straight-up extra attack every turn.
Speaking of Sneak Attack, if you go up to Rogue Level 5, its damage increases to 3d6 instead. Up to Rogue Level 7, and it increases to 4d6. At 4d6, that initial attack will be doing 14d6 + Dex mod + 1 damage.
Warlock might even benefit most from going further down its tree. The magic isn't all that great, honestly, other than Hex and Invisibility, but it's better if you take the Archfey Patron and they have a really good trait to give you later on, so definitely go that route. Sleep is an okay spell, and Faerie Fire just flat-out gives you advantage and therefore Sneak Attack uses, so those are good to add to your arsenal. But what you're really looking for is at Warlock Levels 5 and 6, if you decide to go further down that route than Warlock Level 3. Warlock Level 5 lets you have three Invocations and you'll have to choose between four really great ones. Remember Unearthed Arcana: Revised Class Options? Yeah, you wanna take Eldritch Smite here. It lets you expend a Warlock spell slot to deal an extra 4d8 force damage when you hit a target with your pact weapon. And you can do it twice if you want to burn both of your spell slots on it. And if the target takes any of that damage, and is Huge or smaller, it gets knocked prone. You also get access to the One With Shadows (in dim light or darkness, you can just use your action to choose to become invisible, so you get to spend a turn setting up a great surprise-advantage hit) and Thirsting Blade (attack with your pact weapon twice instead of once whenever you take the Attack action on your turn). (Honestly, drop Maddening Hex here; it's just not worth it anymore.) And if you go to Warlock Level 6, remember how I told you to go with the Archfey Patron? You get Misty Escape here. Yeah. Take damage and react by turning invisible and teleporting to another space, without using a spell slot.
If you want to multiclass even more than just those three classes, and have a high enough Wisdom attribute and/or Strength and Charisma attribute to do it, dipping into Ranger and/or Paladin are worth it. Ranger Level 3 lets you go Hunter, and that gets you Colossus Slayer, which lets you deal an extra 1d8 damage once every turn to any enemy that's not at full health. Paladin Level 2 gets you Divine Smite and the Divine Favor spell. They both have some goodies further on that are pretty nice, too, but the MAD is a little bit steep and you might get more benefit just from sticking with the benefits I listed above, or even just extra Fighter levels to get some sweet ability score improvements, or even that second Extra Attack if you go for a more minimalistic Fighter 12/Rogue 5/Warlock 3 build.

With a Fighter 5/Rogue 7/Warlock 6/Paladin 2 build, taking Battle Master, Assassin, and Archfey/Pact of the Blade, as a Bugbear carrying two scimitars (one of which is your pact weapon), with a spell slot to burn on Eldritch Smite and on Divine Smite, a Thirsting Blade, your use of Action Surge intact, at least one Superiority Die, and having cast Divine Favor on yourself before heading in... You're going to be going into your first attack, 99% of the time, dealing 7d6 + 14d8 (or 16d8 against an undead or fiend) + 2d4 + Dex mod damage, PLUS eight separate 1d6 + 1d4 + Dex mod damage attacks. Maybe +6 damage on top of all that if you still have Improved Pact Weapon rather than One With Shadows. By that level I'd assume your Dex mod was +4, so on your initial strike... You'd be dealing an average of 139 - 145 damage, Improved Pact Weapon depending. 147 - 153 damage against undead or fiends. With advantage on all those attack rolls, most of the time, since after the first one they'd likely be knocked prone. Plus now your friends likely have advantage, and you might be able to knock 'em down up to five more times, or at least give a friend advantage three more. Max damage somehow, I guess you could actually theoretically do up to 278 - 284 damage, or 294 - 300 damage against undead and fiends, on your very first strike in combat. A nice little opening hit for your team!

[Specter]

Assassin builds involve a lot of damage, but considering you have an a-hole DM it's highly unlikely you get to use surprise.

I suggest a universally functional build: Vengeance Paladin 5. Grab heavy armor, a greataxe and go to town. At level 5 all you need to worry about is saving your highest slots to smite the bosses. A good spell you get is Hunter's Mark, which allows you to make many attacks with improved damage as long as you don't lose concentration.

For race, pick Variant Human, to start with Great Weapon Master. 16/10/14/8/10/16 are good starting stats, then boost STR at level 4. The Vengeance Channel Divinity allows you to get advantage against a foe as a bonus action. Bless lets you add +1d4 to hit on every attack (you and two others). So on your first turn, cast Bless and use Vow of Enmity. After that, you can take the -5/+10 penalty on every attack and still hit on most rolls. That's around 2d12+8+20+(possible smites) every round, which is huge. And if you crit, fairly common with advantage), you get another attack. Whaaaat...

If you ever go past level 12, you could multiclass Fighter for Action Surge and maneuvers/crits, or Sorcerer/Bard for more smites.

[Marvnmartian]

if starting out at level 5 personally i would stick with a warlock 2 bard x build can do sustained damage from EB+AB that will keep you able to blast all day but allows you to be the partys face, a healer, a buffer etc basically any type of magical needs your party ends up requiring you can fill the bill

but if you just want dm torture then just play a Cleric 1 (whatever type that gets you heavy armor) Lore wizard x. lore wizard is so broken it can literally take a tarrasque by it self. Fighting a beast? change all of your saving throws to go towards int, fighting a spell caster? then you know what that banish is gonna target his strength because... lore wizards

[urawhat]

Wow!!!! You guys are great Im going to get to work writing up some toons. Thank you for all the advice hopefully my DM learns no more tarrasques. Ill let you guys know how it goes and if my DM cries at all :)


Ps MxKit you're a monster and I love it😁😁😁😁😁

[urawhat]

What level are you guys starting at, and what level are you playing to? It will make a difference, as some Multiclass options are really good, buy don't "come online" until much later on, and are vulnerable until then.
Other stuff, like dual wielding, is far better early on, and then loses it's edge after a point.

Also, your DM kinda sounds like a jerk; Terrasque Hunting is not something to be taken lightly. They're a very hard fight, even at 20th level.

We usually start around level 5. Were playing up to 20.

[strangebloke]

Vengeance Paladin 5. Grab heavy armor, a greataxe and go to town.

This guy knows what's up.

Survivability is key. You don't want to have some wombo-combo build that needs a complicated set of circumstances to really shine. You want to be tough, deadly, and effective.

Paladins are probably the best guys to have around when things go to ****. They have nice immunities, good support features, and above all else: awesome single-target nova damage. The trick is patience. Bide your time. Be boring/average for dozens of rounds of combat, and then, should the DM decide to screw you, unleash at the opportune moment.

Ancients pally is the tankiest. Devotion has the best support abilities. Vengeance just kills stuff.

[Potato_Priest]

Paladin X/Warlock 2 is an often overlooked but very versatile and strong option. Build for charisma first, followed by strength/dexterity and constitution. At warlock level 2 take agonizing blast, which drastically improves your eldritch blast, giving you the powerful ranged attack you've always been missing as a paladin. The extra smite slots don't hurt either.

It doesn't give quite the same burst capability as a sorcerer/paladin multiclass, but it gives better versatility and sustainability.

[KorvinStarmast]

Do you have a link? Im not familiar with this. Apologies, this was a reference to a funny story in Dragon Magazine that I thought I had a link to.
But I don't. If you are not familiar with the ER Burroughs books about John Carter, sorry, this was meant as humor.

[Biggstick]

The most powerful thing you're going to be able to throw at a DM is a well-prepared party. You could run the Classic D&D group (and if you don't know what that make-up is, it's a Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard) and be an extremely min-maxed group. I'm partial to 5 person parties, so here is what my ideal party would look like.

Devotion Paladin. Wear Plate. SnB. Defensive fighting style. Max Charisma, Resilient Con, Lucky and 18 Str. Run Bless in combat. Tank for the party and face.

Life Cleric. Wear Plate. SnB. Max Wisdom, Resilient Con, Warcaster, and 16 Str. Run Bless or Spirit Guardians in combat. Heal up your friends only when necessary. Bring those divine rituals. Use Insight with whoever's facing.

Arcane Trickster. Bow and/or Rapier. Use BB in melee. Max Dexterity, Alert and/or Lucky, Resilient Con. Act as the trapfinder when delving through dungeons. Try to be using Sneak Attack every turn. Face when dealing with unsavory types.

Evocation Wizard. Mage Armor, so stay in the back always. Max Intelligence, Resilient Con, Alert and/or Lucky. Provide sweet CC with spells like Hypnotic Pattern and party friendly aoe with Fireball. Bring those arcane rituals. Face when dealing with arcane or magic types.

Hunter Ranger. Longbow (or SnB if the situation calls for it). Max Dexterity, Sharpshooter, Resilient Con or Wis. You're the Sharpshooter and provide the consistent ranged damage for the party. Party expert on dealing with overland travel, tracking, and nature types.

Rogue and Ranger should be races that have darkvision. Otherwise, run each class levels 1-20.
Another way you could go about finding powerful builds is looking through the Class build guides located here.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491

I hope you're able to find something here that looks fun to play and satisfies your new urge to min-max!

[CaptainSarathai]

If you start at Lvl5, you can have some fun with this:
Fighter2, Warlock2, Sorcerer1
OR
Sorcerer3, Warlock2

The goal here is to Quicken your Eldritch Blast and/or SCAG Cantrips.
Add in the 2 levels of Fighter and you get Action Surge to boot. And suddenly:

(at 5th)
4d10+4d6(Hex)+4*Cha

(at 6th, with Action Surge)
8d10+8d6+8*Cha

(at 11th, with Action Surge, Quicken, and increased number of blasts)
9d10+9d6+9*Cha
----

If your DM allows it, Crossbow Expert can let you dual-wield hand crossbows. Add Sharp Shooter. Add Battle Master. Add Rogue?

Suddenly you're throwing 1-4 attacks, doubling it, and adding a bonus attack. All with +10 to damage in exchange for -3 To Hit. Add in Battle Master and you can use dice for accuracy or damage. Add Sneak Attack damage from Rogue. Go Assassin if you want, potentially Auto-Crit all those shots.

[MintyNinja]

Personally, for a neat gimmick by level 5, let's make you the All Seeing Eye.

V. Human (Observant Feat, +Perception, +1 Wis, +1 Dex) Start with 16 Wis.
Level 1: Rogue. Expertise Perception and whatever else you want.
Level 3: Whichever Archetype you want.
Level 4: +2 Wisdom
Level 5: Proficiency increases.

This will make your Wisdom 18, your active perception +10, and your Passive Perception 25.
Never surprised again, yeah?

[alchahest]

Assassin builds involve a lot of damage, but considering you have an a-hole DM it's highly unlikely you get to use surprise.

I suggest a universally functional build: Vengeance Paladin 5. Grab heavy armor, a greataxe and go to town. At level 5 all you need to worry about is saving your highest slots to smite the bosses. A good spell you get is Hunter's Mark, which allows you to make many attacks with improved damage as long as you don't lose concentration.

For race, pick Variant Human, to start with Great Weapon Master. 16/10/14/8/10/16 are good starting stats, then boost STR at level 4. The Vengeance Channel Divinity allows you to get advantage against a foe as a bonus action. Bless lets you add +1d4 to hit on every attack (you and two others). So on your first turn, cast Bless and use Vow of Enmity. After that, you can take the -5/+10 penalty on every attack and still hit on most rolls. That's around 2d12+8+20+(possible smites) every round, which is huge. And if you crit, fairly common with advantage), you get another attack. Whaaaat...

If you ever go past level 12, you could multiclass Fighter for Action Surge and maneuvers/crits, or Sorcerer/Bard for more smites.

Paladins pack a lot of survivability into a package with a versatile spell list and some serious potential for burst damage. And it's a lot of fun to play. Vow of Emnity is delightful against a tough target, and lets you really make use of Great Weapon Fighting, as he says here. I'm going to third (or fourth?) this suggestion.

[Corran]

Try to avoid one trick pony and gimmicky builds. I advise you also to avoid multiclassing (especially extensive multiclassing), before you start getting a better grasp of the mechanics and, well, of optimization. Multiclassing often looks much better on paper than it will prove in actual play (talking from my experience), so unless you really know what you are doing, or unless you really want to explore some options or have a concept that requires it, I would advise playing a singleclass character for now.

You can always take a look at the guides, too: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491

[urawhat]

If you start at Lvl5, you can have some fun with this:
Fighter2, Warlock2, Sorcerer1
OR
Sorcerer3, Warlock2

The goal here is to Quicken your Eldritch Blast and/or SCAG Cantrips.
Add in the 2 levels of Fighter and you get Action Surge to boot. And suddenly:

(at 5th)
4d10+4d6(Hex)+4*Cha

(at 6th, with Action Surge)
8d10+8d6+8*Cha

(at 11th, with Action Surge, Quicken, and increased number of blasts)
9d10+9d6+9*Cha
----

If your DM allows it, Crossbow Expert can let you dual-wield hand crossbows. Add Sharp Shooter. Add Battle Master. Add Rogue?

Suddenly you're throwing 1-4 attacks, doubling it, and adding a bonus attack. All with +10 to damage in exchange for -3 To Hit. Add in Battle Master and you can use dice for accuracy or damage. Add Sneak Attack damage from Rogue. Go Assassin if you want, potentially Auto-Crit all those shots.


I've been running the sorlock build I'm Sor 9 Lock 3 and its a great build I might have to add the fighter 2 but then i wouldnt get wish at level 20 :/

[dejarnjc]

Try to avoid one trick pony and gimmicky builds. I advise you also to avoid multiclassing (especially extensive multiclassing), before you start getting a better grasp of the mechanics and, well, of optimization. Multiclassing often looks much better on paper than it will prove in actual play (talking from my experience), so unless you really know what you are doing, or unless you really want to explore some options or have a concept that requires it, I would advise playing a singleclass character for now.

You can always take a look at the guides, too: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?377491

Honestly, I could not agree more. IMO, unless you're rolling stats, a single class is generally better than a multi-class. Scor/warlock post level 5 might be the one exception if you're going for raw damage.

[Decstarr]

I'd always go for monk 14/Pala 6 any day of the year. Proficiency with all saves AND pala aura added on top of that just makes a DM's life miserable, especially if you have another (or maybe even 2?) Paladins in your group. It is a pretty average build damage wise, but flavorful and immensely hard to mess up for the DM. So if he's actively daring your group to be a pain for him, just make sure you have enough Paladins and with high Charisma in the group (and at least 1-2 people who can mess up enemies from range since most paladins tend to go mellee and that's kind of the only weakness of an all paladin group).

At level 20, it might not be the best in terms of damage per round, but I'd say it is close to impossible that your DM kills you unless he drops the moon on top of you.