Min/Max for Combat Level 20

[ajrockstarr]

Bit of an odd title I know. Basically we’re running a 4 man little one shot and we’re all level 20 and it’s just pure combat trying to test the limits of how survivable a character is or how much damage they can deal. I was looking for a character with the highest damage at level 20 (with items if you feel special because we’ll have 1 legendary, 2 rare, 2 uncommon, and 2 common) I know it’s a lot but I figure it’ll at least be fun because how often do we get level 20. Thanks ahead of time guys.


P.S We’re using all officially released material btw

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Are you wanting, Nova damage, single battle damage, or adventuring day damage?

[xen]

Sorlockadin with double smites and holy avenger. Maybe 5 hexblade blade pact for eldritch smite/2 paladin/13 divine soul. Wade in with spirit guardians and upcast spiritual weapon and smite thine enemies with your holy/unholy furor + quicken/twin metamagic to just really give the ol' bird to the action economy.

[Phoenix042]

It may be extremely simple, but since you're going to 20, capstones can come into play, and this is brutally effective.

Try this:

Half-Orc zealot barbarian 20.
Point buy:
15 / 12 / 15 / 8 / 13 / 8
Racial bumps this to:
17 / 12 / 16 / 8 / 13 / 8
At 4th, grab orcish fury, for 18 str
At 8th, grab +2 strength, hitting 20
at 12th, grab GWM
at 16th, grab resilient (wisdom)
at 19th, grab +2 con
so at 20th level, your stats are:
24 / 12 / 22 / 8 / 14 / 8

Ask your DM for a Greataxe of Answering (seriously, axes get shafted in this edition, magic wise. As a general rule, many DMs allow you to swap weapon types for a magic weapon).
Then pick up a ring of protection and a cloak of protection (+1 AC and all saves each), and a ring of free action. This leaves you with 1 uncommon and 2 common magic items to choose.
Your stats while raging (which you always are):
HP: 265 (resistance to damage)
AC: 19
Speed: 40ft
Attack: +11, twice, with advantage
Damage on any non-first hit in a turn: 1d12+24 (7 str, 4 rage, 10 GWM, 3 weapon), avg: 30.5
Damage on your first hit in a turn: as above, plus 1d6+10 radiant (divine fury), avg: 44
Damage if you crit (not first hit): 6d12+24 (2 dice from weapon, 1 die from half-orc, 3 dice from barb), avg 63
if you add orcish fury dice: 8d12 + 24, avg 76
Damage if you crit (first hit): as above, plus 2d6 + 10, avg 80 (or 93 with orcish fury dice)
And on a crit, you get an extre attack at average of 30.5 damage (or 63 if that attack crits)

Each turn, if something hits you within 5ft, you can use your reaction for another attack with advantage.

In total, you can make up to 4 attacks in a round, doing something like 135 - 170 damage (with one crit or so).

Major features:
Resistance to physical damage means you can take something like 500 points of it before your backup-features start kicking in.
When you run out of HP, you have 3 - 6 "get out of 0 hp free" cards before you finally succumb and drop to 0.
At that point, you "still" keep fighting until your rage ends, allowing you wreck face and heal up before that happens.
You have REALLY good saves across the board: +15 str, +3 dex (but advantage), +14 con, +10 wis

That wisdom is the real keystone here; with Fanatical Focus, you can drop your rage to reroll a failed save, then just re-start rage on your next turn. Since your rages are unlimited at 20th, that just costs your bonus action for a reroll, and I'd call that a huge win. Stack those together and you have a very low chance of failing any given save, even against a barbarian's typical weaknesses (will saves).

And if you do die, allies can raise you without material components. That's not a ribbon, my friend; it's a tactic. Let the barbarian die; giving him another life just costs an action and a 3rd level spell. Potentially, you can die multiple times in a fight, each time getting another minute of unkillable rage, and just being raised again by the party cleric or paladin.

As far as "unkillable melee demi-god" goes, you've got a lot more going for you than a typical one.

[CTurbo]

1 Lengendary item you say? An level 20 Aarakocra Archer Fighter, Ranger, or Rogue with a Cloak of Invisibility would be pretty much impossible to kill unless it was fighting something with See Invisibility.

A 20 Level Moon Druid with Belt of Storm Giant Strength would be pretty silly.

A 20 level Long Death Monk would be REALLY hard to kill too. I'd take Aarakocra, Max Dex and Wis and take Mobile.

[Unoriginal]

If the idea is to fight waves after waves of enemies just to see how many you can kill, I'd advise Champion Fighter

[ajrockstarr]

Thanks for all the responses so far guys appreciate it, really the one shot is just the DM coming up with a scenario over and over and us playing it, it takes place in some sort of tower, if I had to compare it to anything it’s like in Mortal Kombat where you go up the ladder fighting enemies. One level might have 150 goblins, 1 might have a dragon or two, one might have something he came up with. So really any and all builds are welcome. Thus far its been one to two strong enemies but I doubt it’ll stay that way.

[Grear Bylls]

Play the Sorcerer King

[Phoenix042]

1 Lengendary item you say? An level 20 Aarakocra Archer Fighter, Ranger, or Rogue with a Cloak of Invisibility would be pretty much impossible to kill unless it was fighting something with See Invisibility.

This is really cool, but not really even close to "impossible to kill."
Attacking reveals your position. The rogue or ranger can hide again as a bonus action if they aren't using it for something else, but the enemy can still keep track of where you were when they attacked.
AoE's that call for saving throws ignore this, as long as the caster either knows roughly where you are or can fill all possible spaces in a room (as many dragons can do at this level, for example). Since this is in a tower, that's a major drawback.
Finally, at this level, LOTS of things have blindsense, blindsight, or see invisibility.

It's a cool trick, but unlikely to help you as much as +3 to attack and damage. Honestly, that's why +x magic items don't exist in my games. They're the worst possible mix of strong and boring.

[Unoriginal]

Thanks for all the responses so far guys appreciate it, really the one shot is just the DM coming up with a scenario over and over and us playing it, it takes place in some sort of tower, if I had to compare it to anything it’s like in Mortal Kombat where you go up the ladder fighting enemies. One level might have 150 goblins, 1 might have a dragon or two, one might have something he came up with. So really any and all builds are welcome. Thus far its been one to two strong enemies but I doubt it’ll stay that way.

In that case I strongly suggest a Fighter with a Vorpal Longsword (arguably a Belt of Storm Giant as substitute), the most protective armor/shield you can get, maxed out STR and CON, and the Heavy Armor Master feat.

As far as I know it's the most durable character for that kind of endurance challenge.

[CTurbo]

This is really cool, but not really even close to "impossible to kill."
Attacking reveals your position. The rogue or ranger can hide again as a bonus action if they aren't using it for something else, but the enemy can still keep track of where you were when they attacked.
AoE's that call for saving throws ignore this, as long as the caster either knows roughly where you are or can fill all possible spaces in a room (as many dragons can do at this level, for example). Since this is in a tower, that's a major drawback.
Finally, at this level, LOTS of things have blindsense, blindsight, or see invisibility.

It's a cool trick, but unlikely to help you as much as +3 to attack and damage. Honestly, that's why +x magic items don't exist in my games. They're the worst possible mix of strong and boring.


The idea would be to fly around, make your attacks, and THEN move. You could easily stay out of the range of a creature with Blindsight, Blindsense, or Truesight.

[JNAProductions]

If single target, an Oathbow on a Fighter with Sharpshooter is hard to beat.

[Phoenix042]

My main piece of advice for you is to not neglect saves. If your character has a poor wisdom or con save, you'll be easy to take out of the fight at this level no matter how many HP you have. Many creatures at this level have effects like "frightful presence" or access to many levels of magic that control other people. Letting your wisdom save remain low at this stage of the game is a really easy way to turn your DPR down to zero.

This is a great example of why the champion fighter might seem stronger than they are. Take this example:
Point buy at 1st level: 15, 15, 15, 8, 8, 8
V. Human with heavy armor master for: 16, 16, 16, 8, 8, 8
At 4th and 6th, +2 str
At 8th and 12th, +2 con
At 14th, grab polearm master
At 16th, grab GWM
1t 19th, grab tough

With a wisdom save of -1, if a balor shows up you need a natural 20 to make your wisdom save, or you can't even approach him, and if you do somehow get in range, you have disadvantage on all your attacks. At that point, you're counting on allies to save you from such effects with magic of their own (often eating their actions), but keep in mind that even low-level casters can hit you up with things like hold person (a DC 13 has a 65% chance of eating your next action and making your team burn resources on keeping you in the fight.


This is MUCH better:
Point buy at 1st level: 15, 12, 15, 8, 13, 8
Half-Orc: 17, 12, 16, 8, 14, 8
At 4th, Heavy Armor Master
At 6th, +2 str
At 8th and 12th, +2 con
At 14th, Resilient (wisdom)
At 16th, Shield Master
at 19th, Tough

Now this guy's gonna use a shield and full plate, grab the dueling and defense fighting styles, and pick up a ring and cloak of protection and a +2 shield.
His wisdom save is now +10, con save +11, and he's got three uses of indomitable. His dex is only +3, but we aren't as worried about that.
He should grab a legendary sword that has a +3 bonus. I'd go holy avenger.

Now his stats are:
HP: 264
AC: 25
Attack: +14, four times, crit on 18-20, plus free shove at +11 for possible advantage on attacks
Damage: 1d8+10 (or 3d8 + 10 on a crit), +2d10 vs fiends or undead (or +4d10 on a crit)
Saves: Str +13, Dex +3, Con +13, Int +1, Wis +10, Cha +1
Dex save is +7 if it's a single target effect, and if you make the save on a save-for-half effect, you take no damage instead.

Between these stats and Survivor, you are extremely hard to kill, and remain so even if you can't get a rest. Your features are decoupled from any limited uses, and so you end up possibly being able to fight hoards of creatures indefinitely, and even if you're fighting tougher ones, you heal to over half HP (132 - 141) any time you're given half a chance. On the off chance that your enemies attacks aren't magical, you take 3 fewer damage from each of them. That stacks up over time, and really helps with hoards combined with your healing over time.

I like the zealot barbarian a little better, but this build has the advantage of healing automatically, both during and between fights.

And if you do get a rest, you have second wind, lots of hit dice, and you regain two uses of action surge, which is pretty devastating considering how often you crit.

What do you think?

[MilkmanDanimal]

A 20 Level Moon Druid with Belt of Storm Giant Strength would be pretty silly.

Make them a Half-Orc on the off chance they actually drop to 0 hp, they're just going to 1. Just sit in the middle of combat and wild shape every turn and let everybody else do the killing. Ridiculously survivable, even if they maybe aren't contributing much in offense.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

If single target, an Oathbow on a Fighter with Sharpshooter is hard to beat.

This^
Wood Elf Fighter (Champion)
10,20,16,8,16,8
Elven Accuracy, Sharpshooter, Mobile, Athlete, Crossbow Expert
Oathbow-Advantage on attacks made triple advantage by EA and you crit on an 18-20 This means you crit 38.59% of any attack dealing 2d8+6d6+15 per hit or 38 avg damage. That number includes all possible rolls so depending on the targets AC it could be more like 50%+ of hits will be crits.
Mithral Plate AC 18
Cloak of displacement
Winged Boots

[MrWesson22]

How about a paladin 6/divine soul sorcerer 14? Sword and board and plate, defense fighting style means a minimum of 21 AC. +cha to all saves, divine soul +2D4 to saves in case you need it. Full access to cleric and sorcerer spell lists up to level 7 spells. You count as a 17th level caster for spell slots. You'll have enough slots and sorcery points to keep twinned greater invisibility or haste up on yourself and an ally depending on group composition.

Grab a holy avenger longsword for your legendary, belt of fire giant strength (25) for your very rare, +1 armor, shield, ring/amulet of protection for your other magic items. Max charisma, and you can still pick up feats like sentinel and inspiring leader.

[Galactkaktus]

A spellcaster that makes a simulacrum of the strongest damage dealer since that will be the storngest dpr+ the casters dpr. And thus be higher than the strongest dpr.

[pohoca]

You must play the Sorcerer King

[Rolero]

You must play the Sorcerer King
They deleted the post ^^U
It was too much for this world :smallbiggrin:

[TheUser]

Bit of an odd title I know. Basically we’re running a 4 man little one shot and we’re all level 20 and it’s just pure combat trying to test the limits of how survivable a character is or how much damage they can deal. I was looking for a character with the highest damage at level 20 (with items if you feel special because we’ll have 1 legendary, 2 rare, 2 uncommon, and 2 common) I know it’s a lot but I figure it’ll at least be fun because how often do we get level 20. Thanks ahead of time guys.


P.S We’re using all officially released material btw

Fighter 1/Valor Bard 19
Use Archery Fighting Style, Sharpshooter and Elven Accuracy.

Since +2 Longbows are rare you and your clone can each have one and sharpshooter attack at +10 to hit; with triple advantage it should be very consistent mega damage (provided you can get advantage).

If both you and your Simulacrum use Swift Quiver that's 8 attacks per round each at 1d8+17 with sharpshooter.


8d8+136 damage (over 200 average DPR).

You're also a level 19 Bard with all the bells and whistles that go with that.

Other than that level 20 Divine Soul Sorcerers are virtually unstoppable...