Optimization What are the worst subclasses? (In terms of optimization potential) [Archive]

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EdenIndustries

2018-07-18, 11:21 AM

Spyderson

2018-07-18, 11:30 AM

EdenIndustries

2018-07-18, 11:41 AM

Wow, that's handy, thanks a ton!

Although...insofar as I loved playing a Wild Magic Sorcerer and thought he was pretty strong (ranked C- and had negative rankings for power and enjoyment) and thought my Trickery Cleric (ranked C) had some fantastic utility (Pass Without Trace, etc.) I guess what I'm looking for here is any passionate appeals for a different ordering in case someone has some great reasons but in a more generic survey as you linked would get drowned out. Looks like my research was basically accurate with the bottom 4 subclasses, so presumably the majority of people are roughly in line with that idea. So maybe there aren't any strong outlier opinions. But I guess we'll see!

Citan

2018-07-18, 11:50 AM

Lately I've been doing a thought experiment about how to optimize the worst subclasses in the game. And I was going to make a post about that but first I figured I should see if there's any consensus about what exactly the worst subclasses are!

I did a bunch of searching on these forums and others and from what I can tell the worst subclasses are, in no particular order:

Barbarian - Path of the Berzerker
Fighter - Purple Dragon Knight
Ranger - Beast Master
Monk - Way of the Four Elements

I'd like to generate a top-4 worst subclasses so that I can then theorycraft an average 4-person team of the worst subclasses. So, are there any other subclasses anyone would like to add into contention? Or would you remove any of those 4 from the worst list? I know there's some love for Four Elements Monk in particular (from Citan and others), so let me know if you think any should be removed from the list too. Thanks in advance!
Hi!

Hmm, it depends on what you call as optimization?
For example, as much as I know the Champion to be pretty decent (and up to very very good in some multiclass builds) if I had to put a list of three "worst" subclasses to build upon I'd probably have it in.
You have zero build choice, it boosts only fighting abilities (well, Athletics checks can be used in several other situations to be fair) and while the 15th level feature is very useful in some prolonged fights (or between fights) it will overall make no difference between living and dying if you are facing an immediate, overwhelming threat.
It's a good thing that at least feats, and often multiclasses, are available in most games, but when neither is available, the optimization is finished when you choose the archetype. Since the only reasonable "optimization" to make, and the only thing you can do, is boost STR/DEX, CON, WIS, usually in that order.

There also the particular case of Warlock: should we consider the Patrons alone as a subclass? If so, then I'd put my vote for Undying.
Spell list is thematic but half of them is too situational for my taste (Ray of Sickness, Feign Death, False Life, Legend Lore), and the benefits are good but imo lackluster compared to what you could get with another Patron, or what you could achieve with feats/multiclass in terms of similar results over a day.

Then there is the question of "optimize to do what"?
I know most of the discussion around here are about damage numbers (sadly), but for a game centered on world development and behind-the-scene schemes, the Assassin that is otherwise polarizing community between "very great" (considers Ambush is easy to set) and "near useless" (considers Ambush is too hard to enable) would get all-around cheers. The ability to completely impersonate a character (an achievement otherwise requiring particular investment in class and feats) has world-ruling potential.

Finally, there is the question of target level.
Some classes/archetypes play overall similarly on the full course (Champion/Battlemaster Fighter, Devotion Paladin, Shadow Monk, many Clerics, etc).
Others though get game-changing abilities (ex Arcane Trickster / Eldricht Knight which get a huge boost in spellcasting mid-course, 4E Monk getting huge boost in mobility/AOE mid-course, Open Hand Monk getting winning ability end-game, Moon Druid having much more powerful forms at 10th level and becoming nigh-unkillable end-game, Abjurer Wizard becoming extremely resilient at 14th level -so can use more concentration spells or use more risky tactics-, casters getting Simulacrum to self-enable some nice combos, etc).
Even when not talking about play-changing abilities, several archetypes in classes alternate "utility/fluff" features with "direct fight" features so have different potential in different areas depending on level. Quick example, the Thief: while the 13th level is in essence of variable value (depending on DM), the 17th level one is a big, consistent, understandable boost in fighting power. :)
Another example from your short-list, the Beastmaster: Share Spells at 15th level was a very good feature, but kinda limited in scope as a single-class one. Multiclassing could make it shine very much though. With the new spells from Xanathar's, even a single-classed Ranger will get much more mileage of it.

So the relative value of each subclass compared to the others may vary significantly depending on that target level. :)

EdenIndustries

2018-07-18, 12:05 PM

Hmm, it depends on what you call as optimization?

Good point. I think primarily what I'm looking for are subclasses that cause most people to just throw up their arms in defeat in the sense that they don't see any RAW way to make a subclass fun or optimized. I know everything can be fun, of course, but I guess I mean not fun in the sense that they feel like they're constantly lagging behind in combat and/or utility.

So for example, people may say, "Without giving the Four Elements Monk more Ki, it really lags behind and is no fun and very weak." And then the fun part for me is in examining where niches may lie in which suddenly the Four Elements Monk is powerful in ways that were unexpected (for example, the lower cost of upcasting Hold Person relative to upcasting the actual spell).

So for something like the Champion which not only has acknowledged ways in which it can be good but probably also lacks enough choice to find interesting niches, that one probably isn't quite as fun.

In summary, I want to find subclasses that people don't think have any juice to squeeze out of them, and I want to find the juice to squeeze out of them :smallsmile:

Mortis_Elrod

2018-07-18, 12:19 PM

Undying- there’s not a lot to use here besides spell list. All abilities are pretty passive too without any other interactions.

Wild magic- the randomness is not useful. Wish it was more controlled.

Monster slayer- this isn’t a bad subclass, I’m just not sure how you bring out it’s strengths. There’s nothing to optimize here I think.

Sun Soul- so I think that you can certainly optimize around 4E monks, but there is very little to bring out on the Sun Soul. It’s not bad, but because of the very special nature of its attacks it’s hard to increase its effectiveness.

And that’s all I can think of. The other classes have stufff going on that can be fiddled with and improved or I don’t know the class well enough.

Galactkaktus

2018-07-18, 12:21 PM

Path of the Berzerker is great at the lower levels at level 3 you have access to bonus action attacks. At level 4 you have gwm level 6 gives you immunity to stuff that stops you from doing your job. I think totem warriors begins to shine after lv8 since they need two feats gwm + something to get bonus action attacks. Before that i prefer path of the berzerker in most cases.

TheUser

2018-07-18, 12:28 PM

Barbarian - Path of the Berzerker
Fighter - Purple Dragon Knight
Ranger - Beast Master
Monk - Way of the Four Elements

A lot of people **** on Path of the Berzerker, but being immune to both Frighten and Charm is absolutely amazing. Most of the big crippling factors that can really mess with a party embody either the Frightened condition or the Charmed condition.

Being able to take a level of exhaustion to get a bonus action attack is no joke either, but the idea of getting sweet features at a price is something most D&D players abhor.

Most people just like getting resistance to all but psychic damage early but in terms of level 6 features the Frenzy Barbarian really is top tier.

mephnick

2018-07-18, 12:32 PM

Being able to take a level of exhaustion to get a bonus action attack is no joke either, but the idea of getting sweet features at a price is something most D&D players abhor.

I'll be the first to agree that modern D&D players treat any penalties like personal attacks against their existence, but I think the main problem is that most games have feats, which allow extra attacks for no cost. A Berserker in a non-feat game is an absolute monster. It's a lot less valuable when everyone's getting PAM and GWM attacks at no cost. I agree it gets trashed a bit too much though.

*Not to mention they basically obsoleted it with Zealot, who can do pretty much the same job with a bunch of great bonuses and literally no drawbacks.

Nidgit

2018-07-18, 12:33 PM

I think 5e does a decent job of generally making each subclass useful at some level or setting. 4E Monk, for instance, is actually pretty good at higher levels once it has enough Ki to sustain multiple castings. The Berserker is essentially a nova Barbarian that lets you nova repeatedly at the cost of your character's functions and gets a bad rap simply from the way it's phrased. Whispers Bard, Mastermind, and Inquisitive are all lackluster in dungeon crawls but fantastic in intrigue-heavy games. Wild Magic Sorcerer is difficult to optimize for due to the inherent randomness but can be quite fun in Tiers 2 and 3.

A lot of classes have hitches that make them less good or flexible than we'd like, but the only outright bad subclasses imo are Storm Herald Barbarian, PDK Fighter, Undying Bladelock, and Beastmaster Ranger. Subclasses that simply don't function well enough to compare to their competing subclasses in almost any setting.

Vogie

2018-07-18, 12:34 PM

mephnick

2018-07-18, 12:36 PM

the only outright bad subclasses imo are Storm Herald Barbarian, PDK Fighter, Undying Bladelock, and Beastmaster Ranger. Subclasses that simply don't function well enough to compare to their competing subclasses in almost any setting.

These are the 4 I pick as well, though it is very easy to make most of them competitive with a few numbers bumped up. More damage/effect for the herald auras, saves and HP for the beastmaster pet, extra uses or CHA scaling for PDK abilities...and I haven't looked at the Undying warlock since it was printed..

Naanomi

2018-07-18, 01:01 PM

Wild Sorcerer is fine *if* you and the GM agree on how much wild-surging should happen

Undying warlock just offers... very little exciting. Even in an Undead focused campaign its abilities nor spells are particularly exciting, and now Hexblade even steals some of the ‘death focused’ niche it filled conceptually

Battlerager is pretty unimpressive as well... wear poor armor (good luck finding magic versions!) to do... very little special. Lots of bonus action competition as well

A fair number of other subclasses don’t look great compared to other options for the class, but are not terrible taken alone... it is arguable, but I’d put things like Oath of the Crown, Storm Herald, Bannerete, Kensei, Mastermind...

Galactkaktus

2018-07-18, 01:25 PM

I'll be the first to agree that modern D&D players treat any penalties like personal attacks against their existence, but I think the main problem is that most games have feats, which allow extra attacks for no cost. A Berserker in a non-feat game is an absolute monster. It's a lot less valuable when everyone's getting PAM and GWM attacks at no cost. I agree it gets trashed a bit too much though.

*Not to mention they basically obsoleted it with Zealot, who can do pretty much the same job with a bunch of great bonuses and literally no drawbacks.

It's not at no cost it's at the cost of an ASI or feat.

jas61292

2018-07-18, 01:28 PM

I'd like to add on to what had already been said in defense of the berserker. I think berserker suffers from the mindset that people seem to have about barbarians in general. It seems so common to me for people to look at it as if it is a 3 level class, completely ignoring the higher level features, and especially the higher level subclass features. Yet, regardless of any other issues, these are where the berserker shines. Immunity to Fear and Charm is absolutely fantastic, and easy reaction attacks are amazing. Hell, even their intimidation ability is cool once you realize that their immunities mean that dumping Wis and not Cha is perfectly fine. And it combos well with frenzy letting you lock someone down while still attacking.

But even looking just at level 3, berserker is also a subclass that's power is largely dependent on the game it is in. In general, the fewer variant rules you use, the better it is:

No V. Human? Then the feats that devalue frenzy are more costly to take and more of a tradeoff.

No Feats? Frenzy is now incredibly strong as only monks, two weapon users and and high level fighters can compete with you number of attacks, and all of them are weaker in comparison.

No multiclassing? Now those higher level abilities can really shine as they are not also competing with various abilities from other classes that a barbarian could steal.

As mentioned, it gets a bad rap cause some players despise costs or other negatives. But the archetype as a whole is quite strong, and in the right game, I'd argue it is among the strongest archetypes.

mgshamster

2018-07-18, 02:54 PM

Someone has already done all the research (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?542843-2017-Class-Rank-Survey-results-are-in!&highlight=Poll) for you!

Theres a their list and I think a link to a spreadsheet of their survey in there if I remember right.

No, they haven't don't their research. What they did was conduct a popularity contest based on forum users' opinion of what's good and bad.

But there's a huge flaw with forum users' opinions about optimization - most polle just believe the first authoritative analysis they read, regardless if the analysis is wrong. People soon forget why a particular subclass is good or bad and just started stating that it is, which others start to believe.

Even post-belief analysis which shows otherwise often gets disregarded in favor of the first analysis, and thus you create a fallacy of popularity on how good or bad a particular subclass is.

This very thread is an Excellent example, as both the Berserker and the Beastmaster are given as examples of bad subclasses, when neither of them are.

Even Four Elements is a decent subclass - it may not be the best, but isn't isn't bad.

Good point. I think primarily what I'm looking for are subclasses that cause most people to just throw up their arms in defeat in the sense that they don't see any RAW way to make a subclass fun or optimized.

There isn't any.

Non of the classes will make someone quit out of frustration on how bad the class is. Comparatively, several Pathfinder classes have done that quite well. But the 5e subclasses are all fairly decent.

Go ahead and give it a try. Play the classes that everyone claims are bad: berserker, Beastmaster, Purple Dragon Knight, wild mage, four elements, and crown oath.

Play them, and see how they can adventure just fine, that they're all perfectly viable, and they can all be fun.

It's about the only way to convince people, because all the analysis which shows they work doesn't seem to have put a dent in the belief that they're bad.

MrStabby

2018-07-18, 03:13 PM

So never played them but I thought the PDK looked pretty good, at least vs the champion. It actually helps you have stuff to do in the social pillar of the game (from memory, might be wrong).

Storm barbarian is probably my worst, some value to elemental resistance but otherwise it doesn't really add much to the class in my eyes.

EdenIndustries

2018-07-18, 03:54 PM

There isn't any.

Non of the classes will make someone quit out of frustration on how bad the class is. Comparatively, several Pathfinder classes have done that quite well. But the 5e subclasses are all fairly decent.

Go ahead and give it a try. Play the classes that everyone claims are bad: berserker, Beastmaster, Purple Dragon Knight, wild mage, four elements, and crown oath.

Play them, and see how they can adventure just fine, that they're all perfectly viable, and they can all be fun.

Yeah the "throw their arms up in defeat" was said tongue-in-cheek. I know that the balance is quite good in 5e, but I still think it's a fun thought experiment to push the envelope on subclasses that may have a bad reputation.

jas61292

2018-07-18, 04:10 PM

Go ahead and give it a try. Play the classes that everyone claims are bad: berserker, Beastmaster, Purple Dragon Knight, wild mage, four elements, and crown oath.

Play them, and see how they can adventure just fine, that they're all perfectly viable, and they can all be fun.

It's about the only way to convince people, because all the analysis which shows they work doesn't seem to have put a dent in the belief that they're bad.

While I generally agree, I would argue a few, most notably the purple dragon knight, are actually quite bad. I mean at level 3 a champion has expanded ctits on every attack, a battle master has a handful of superiority dice every short rest, and an eldritch knight has spells. Meanwhile, the PDK can heal one nearby ally 3 damage once per short rest. But only when you also want to heal yourself. And it can't even do the ever valuable pop up healing. Oh, and it's scaling its 1 per level. And none if you multiclass. It's honestly complete garbage. And none of its other abilities are that much better. The social skill it gets is probably the best thing it gets.

Note however that in these cases, it is the archetype itself that is weak, not the overall character. Fighter is a strong class, even without an archetype, so a PDK is not going to be a bad character. But it will be awful in comparison to other fighters.

But even so, subclasses like this are few and far between, and the popular answers are typically much stronger than people make them out to be.

Daphne

2018-07-18, 04:20 PM

I think it's worthy mentioning that while Desert and Storm are not very good, the Tundra option of Storm Herald is actually very useful, it gives tons of temporary hit points for the party (and it stacks with Barbarian's resistances).

Non of the classes will make someone quit out of frustration on how bad the class is.

It might not be bad, but I got very frustrated playing a low level Sorcerer.

MeeposFire

2018-07-18, 04:34 PM

One thing to consider is that in this thread it is talking about optimization but one thing I find here is that people often confuse optimization power with being what they want or being fun. The beastmaster ranger is the most prominent example where it is not really as weak as people seem to act like it is, however what it does have is a feature that does not work how people want it to work and that really influences how people feel about the sub class. You can get a lot of damage using a beastmaster but there are a fair number of people that do not like that the animal is controlled by the actions of the ranger rather than having its own set of actions.

Same thing occurs with the berserker and to a much lesser extent the 4e monk. The berserker barbarian actually has many powerful features (its level 14 is potent and its immunities are very good as well but even though a bonus action attack with any weapon (which by the way is not based on the attack action which is very rare) its penalty is very hard to swallow (and not just because people hate penalties for instance barbarians already trade advantage to attack on their turn for handing out advantage to all enemies for a full round so the concept of giving out disadvantages already exist here so the idea of a penalty is fine it is how bad a penalty is compared to what you get) because the penalty takes so long to remove and is so hard to remove that it really hurts your ability to use it to the point for a number of people it is not worth using even if you play a berserker (or maybe just 1/day since 1 level of exhaustion is not good but may not be a deal breaker).

The 4e monk has the issue where it makes you to play an avatar the last airbender like character throwing elemental effects around but it plays more like just using a few spells here and there which takes away a lot of the fun of what you want form the class or you use up all your ki fast and feel cheated. It also has the problem of being the very rare sub class that gives out spells but does not give out class features at the same time which I think also hurts its fun factor. The effects themselves are actually useful and potentially powerful but it still doe snot mean you get what you really want from them.

sophontteks

2018-07-18, 04:44 PM

A more interesting discussion may be something like this...
"Most poorly-designed subclasses."
They can be fun, they can be strong, but there are some subclasses that I feel they just didn't think through so well, and others they poured their hearts into.

Like, Assassin. Its strong and all, but most of its abilities are really bad. They just don't mesh with dnd. Beastmaster has the same feel.

And on the other side, glamour bards aren't the best, but their abilities are unique and very awesome. It just seems like a lot of love went into its design.

mephnick

2018-07-18, 06:04 PM

It's not at no cost it's at the cost of an ASI or feat.

Fine. Compared to the cost of the defining class feature of the subclass you've chosen an ASI is nothing.

mephnick

2018-07-18, 06:07 PM

While I generally agree, I would argue a few, most notably the purple dragon knight, are actually quite bad.

Yeah, the PDK is easily the worst designed subclass in the game. It's so bad that people forget about it when these topics come up because no one has ever played or seen one. :smallyuk:

The fact that it's a Fighter makes it viable, because the base class is solid, but the subclass is terrible.

Naanomi

2018-07-18, 06:29 PM

Yeah, the PDK is easily the worst designed subclass in the game. It's so bad that people forget about it when these topics come up because no one has ever played or seen one. :smallyuk:

The fact that it's a Fighter makes it viable, because the base class is solid, but the subclass is terrible.
Same goes for Undying patron... Warlock is good even without a subclass at all, but I’m hard pressed to think of any mechanical reason to play an Undying warlock over the other choices. Battlerager isn’t far off either.

Cybren

2018-07-18, 10:56 PM

I'll be the first to agree that modern D&D players treat any penalties like personal attacks against their existence, but I think the main problem is that most games have feats, which allow extra attacks for no cost. A Berserker in a non-feat game is an absolute monster. It's a lot less valuable when everyone's getting PAM and GWM attacks at no cost. I agree it gets trashed a bit too much though.

*Not to mention they basically obsoleted it with Zealot, who can do pretty much the same job with a bunch of great bonuses and literally no drawbacks.

of the set “all 5e games”, most are featless, from what WotC has told us from their market research. Of the sub-set of people who both play 5e and talk about it on forums, yes, most games use feats

MaxWilson

2018-07-18, 11:19 PM

of the set “all 5e games”, most are featless, from what WotC has told us from their market research. Of the sub-set of people who both play 5e and talk about it on forums, yes, most games use feats

My memory tells me that WotC's market research says most PCs are featless, which isn't the same as most 5e games being featless. It's pretty common for people to feel obligated (for whatever reason) to boost stats before taking feats.

I know when I was new to 5E I tended to default to stat-boosting instead of paging through the feat section of the PHB. "What's this Lucky thing? It sounds cool, but is it any good for my gnomish wizard? ... I think I'll just boost my Int instead to try to get to 20 as fast as possible. I can't possibly regret that."

mgshamster

2018-07-19, 07:31 AM

Yeah the "throw their arms up in defeat" was said tongue-in-cheek.

Fair.

However, "throwing your arms ho in defeat" was a fairly common occurrence in Pathfinder for me.

One thing this thread does inspire in me is a desire to run two identical games for two different groups; one group with the A Team (Divination Wizard, Hexblade, Lore Bard, and Moon Druid), and the other with a B Team (Four Elements Monk, PDK Fighter, Beastermaster Ranger, and Wild Mage Sorc) and see how far each of them can make it through the adventure.

It might not be bad, but I got very frustrated playing a low level Sorcerer.

I've found that while it does happen, it's almost always localized to a soecific table.

For example, there's a fellow around here that thinks the warlock class is the absolute worst, mostly because his DM rarely allows short rests, but is just fine with a 15 minute adventuring day and a long rest back in town. But even then, it's influenced by personal opinion. That particular person hadn't actually played a warlock, he just witnisses it. Comparatively, I've played a warlock in that exact same situation - short rests were rare, but heading back to town for a long rest was common - and even then I didn't feel shorted as a warlock. It was still fun to play.

So while it's absolutely possible for someone to get frustrated with a class in 5e, it's almost always a, "This class may be frustrating when you account for [these] rulings, playing the game with [this] playstyle" type of thing.

Willie the Duck

2018-07-19, 08:47 AM

My memory tells me that WotC's market research says most PCs are featless, which isn't the same as most 5e games being featless. It's pretty common for people to feel obligated (for whatever reason) to boost stats before taking feats.

I recall that being the reasonable conclusion of the listed question. I'd rather have seen the actual survey proper to know how they asked the question, since how you ask it often alters the response. But regardless, yes, there is a difference between one's character not having feats, or even all the PC currently in the campaign not (possibly not yet) having feats is different from the table not playing with feats as an option one can take.

I know when I was new to 5E I tended to default to stat-boosting instead of paging through the feat section of the PHB. "What's this Lucky thing? It sounds cool, but is it any good for my gnomish wizard? ... I think I'll just boost my Int instead to try to get to 20 as fast as possible. I can't possibly regret that."

I think, barring fighters, barbarians, and builds predicated on a specific feat (a sword and board gish build that really can't do their schtick until they've picked up War Caster), etc., there's a compelling argument that this is usually a sound idea. It's certainly the most clear and obvious way to get better at doing what you intend to be doing.

MaxWilson

2018-07-19, 09:23 AM

I think, barring fighters, barbarians, and builds predicated on a specific feat (a sword and board gish build that really can't do their schtick until they've picked up War Caster), etc., there's a compelling argument that this is usually a sound idea. It's certainly the most clear and obvious way to get better at doing what you intend to be doing.

My point is that now I know 5E better, including understanding when and where high stats are impactful, I have less desire to default to boosting stats, especially at low levels. A well-chosen feat like Mobile can be far more impactful for e.g. my Gnomish wizard than another +2 points of Int are. (Also it must be acknowledged that boosting Int was more tempting under that initial DM because he awarded extra spell slots for high Int, based on the AD&D Wisdom tables, and since I was new to 5E I didn't have a good feel for how much I would regret not having the extra spell slots.)

Bottom line: even if feats were not an optional rule, and considering the known fact that most people play at low-to-medium levels, I would still expect featless PCs to be the majority of PCs in play at any given time.

A similar thing could be said about multiclassing: it feels risky to branch out of your specialty when you're still learning the game. When I was playing an 8th level Gnomish Enchanter and thinking, "boy, that Instinctive Charm sounds cool, but do I really want to get close enough to use it? Maybe I'll just keep it for emergencies," it never occurred to me that I could have just played a Fighter 1/Enchanter 7 in heavy plate and waded right into melee with relative impunity to use Instinctive Charm constantly.

Specter

2018-07-19, 01:21 PM

The absolute worst is Purple Dragon Knight, because the features have no synergy with anything else in the game.

MaxWilson

2018-07-19, 08:52 PM

The absolute worst is Purple Dragon Knight, because the features have no synergy with anything else in the game.

I wouldn't go so far as to say it has no synergy at all.

Granting reaction attack to allies when you action surge synergizes okay with rogue allies (Sneak Attack) and some Druid or Wizard allies (Brontosaurus wildshape, conjured T-Rexes, demons, etc.), although Battlemaster does it just as well. Granting healing to allies when you Second Wind synergizes well with anyone with a good offense-to-durability ratio, such as a Raging + Recklessly Attacking GWM Barbearian or an Air Elemental or even a high-AC Cavalier. Think of it as sort of like a free Inspiring Leader feat: +level to HP every short rest for all of your buddies, on a bonus action.

Come to think of it, a party of three Purple Dragon Knights and a Forest Land Druid might actually be a lot of fun: Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedevere, Sir Kay, and Merlin.

P.S. I think Land Druid has my vote for weakest subclass, especially Forest. It's so weak that I always forget it even exists.

Citan

2018-07-20, 01:11 AM

I wouldn't go so far as to say it has no synergy at all.

Granting reaction attack to allies when you action surge synergizes okay with rogue allies (Sneak Attack) and some Druid or Wizard allies (Brontosaurus wildshape, conjured T-Rexes, demons, etc.), although Battlemaster does it just as well. Granting healing to allies when you Second Wind synergizes well with anyone with a good offense-to-durability ratio, such as a Raging + Recklessly Attacking GWM Barbearian or an Air Elemental or even a high-AC Cavalier. Think of it as sort of like a free Inspiring Leader feat: +level to HP every short rest for all of your buddies, on a bonus action.

Come to think of it, a party of three Purple Dragon Knights and a Forest Land Druid might actually be a lot of fun: Sir Lancelot, Sir Bedevere, Sir Kay, and Merlin.

P.S. I think Land Druid has my vote for weakest subclass, especially Forest. It's so weak that I always forget it even exists.
I was gonna say mostly exactly that.
Purple Knight abilities are overall solid in any party (hard to find a party with neither a Rogue nor a Paladin nor a Barbarian nor another Fighter nor a Ranger, all sporting potentially powerful single weapon attacks).

People dismiss it imo mainly (simply?) because it has no defining ability, all can be assimilated to lessened versions of features that other classes have.
Except they forget about the interesting bit, as you stress out, which is the particular action economy of those ones here.
Like, since you are calling out Battlemaster as "doing the same better", it's plain and extremely wrong.
Remember that not only does it use a bonus action as you say, meaning you use it whatever kind of fighting style you use (multiclass friendly), if you stay stingle-classed, you end with *three* Action Surge, on which you can boost *two* allies.
So you end with a much, *much* better action economy than a Battlemaster dedicating all dice to Commander's Strike.

Same with the Second Wind affecting allies: you have something similar to Life Cleric's Channel Divinity. Yeah, it's five times less effective than that... Who cares really? At those low levels when you get it, it's one more people that can save the whole party straight by providing the "1 HP saviour".
If you have people with short-rest securing tools, it becomes a pretty decent source of HP restoration to help the healer keep resources for offensive spells, as it's much more effective than an upcast Quickened Aid, or a Mass Healing Words.

This archetype is imo much better than Champion for that reason (except solo or 2-man party): in most parties, having some emergency healing, even if it's weak in how many HP are restored, is nice, and the reaction ability naturally scales with allies. :)

But because the fluff in itself is specific, and the abilities aren't shiny, people view it as meh sadly.

(EDIT: Also I completely disagree on Land being the weakest subclass but not time anymore for now ;))

jas61292

2018-07-20, 07:22 AM

P.S. I think Land Druid has my vote for weakest subclass, especially Forest. It's so weak that I always forget it even exists.

Just have to post to say how strongly I disagree with this. As many people will argue, magic is the strongest thing in ther game, and a Land Druid is a Druid (which is a strong class itself) but with even more magic. I personally consider it the strongest of all Druids.

If any Druid is weak, its the Moon Druid. Yeah, yeah, moon is ther poster child of poorly balanced classes in 5e, and is broken as hell at a few levels. But for the majority of the games levels, including throughout all of tier 2 (arguably the most played levels), it is just a druid that can give up all that actually makes it good in exchange for being a very unimpressive meat bag.

That said, I don't think any Druid is actually weak at all. It's all just relative.

Specter

2018-07-20, 07:26 AM

sophontteks

2018-07-20, 07:26 AM

Zalabim

2018-07-20, 07:49 AM

if you stay stingle-classed, you end with *three* Action Surge, on which you can boost *two* allies.
So you end with a much, *much* better action economy than a Battlemaster dedicating all dice to Commander's Strike.

Same with the Second Wind affecting allies: you have something similar to Life Cleric's Channel Divinity. Yeah, it's five times less effective than that... Who cares really? At those low levels when you get it, it's one more people that can save the whole party straight by providing the "1 HP saviour".
The PDK's problem is that its numbers look low and its abilities are frustratingly limited. The heal on Second Wind can't be used on any ally that's at 0 HP, for example, because unconscious allies cannot see or hear you. The conditions under which the Indomitable benefit can be used are ridiculously specific. The PDK is better at the exact combination of things it does, but a BM can do all the same kinds of things and has the flexibility to do other, more effective things on demand.

In terms of not pulling off the fantasy offered, the sorcerer class is among the worst, with the draconic origin giving you a scaly mathematician that should use their mobility to keep as far away from melee combat as possible. What part of that is draconic or intuitive?

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 08:15 AM

Like, since you are calling out Battlemaster as "doing the same better", it's plain and extremely wrong.
Remember that not only does it use a bonus action as you say, meaning you use it whatever kind of fighting style you use (multiclass friendly), if you stay stingle-classed, you end with *three* Action Surge, on which you can boost *two* allies.
So you end with a much, *much* better action economy than a Battlemaster dedicating all dice to Commander's Strike.

A twentieth level PDK has two action surges per short rest. He can grant reaction attacks to two allies with each action surge. He'll boost the guy with the strongest attacks twice, and the second-strongest twice, unless since of those guys happen not to have a reaction when he needs to Action Surge (due to OA/Sentinel/etc.) in which case he'll boost the third-strongest.

A twentieth level Battlemaster can grant reaction attacks with a bonus action six times per short rest. These can all go to his strongest ally.

In a party where there are a lot of high-damage PCs or summons the PDK may be okay, but the fact that the Battlemaster grants more reaction attacks (if he focuses exclusively on that) and can choose the timing freely is what I referred to when I remarked that the Battlemaster does it better.

PDK doesn't compare to Life Cleric CD because PDK's ability can't be used to bring anyone back from 0 HP, since it requires being able to see or hear, and unconscious creatures can't.

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 08:24 AM

Just have to post to say how strongly I disagree with this. As many people will argue, magic is the strongest thing in ther game, and a Land Druid is a Druid (which is a strong class itself) but with even more magic. I personally consider it the strongest of all Druids.

If any Druid is weak, its the Moon Druid. Yeah, yeah, moon is ther poster child of poorly balanced classes in 5e, and is broken as hell at a few levels. But for the majority of the games levels, including throughout all of tier 2 (arguably the most played levels), it is just a druid that can give up all that actually makes it good in exchange for being a very unimpressive meat bag.

That said, I don't think any Druid is actually weak at all. It's all just relative.

My understanding is that we're discussing weak subclasses, not weak classes. If you could lose your subclass and barely notice, it's a weak subclass.

I agree that druids are never weak; but Land brings very little to the table besides some extra spell slots and maybe one interesting low-level spell per terrain type, and Forest doesn't even have an interesting spell. (Yes, taking pressure off spells prepared can be worthwhile, but it's still weak overall compared to Shepherd or Moon.)

Moon Druids are like Bladesingers: full casters that can switch hit. A mid-level Moon Druid can throw down a Conjure Animals and then wildshape into a Giant Constrictor Snake to restrain enemies, both in the same turn. (He can't make any attacks in that turn but he can at least threaten OAs and pin an enemy in place. Needs a way to keep concentration when damaged of course, Res (Con) or Warcaster or in a pinch Lucky.) At higher levels he can turn into e.g. a Fire Elemental and Disengage through a bunch of enemies for auto-damage against them every round. And bottom line is that hundreds of free HP is always hundreds of free HP, every day.

Anyone who thinks Moon Druids are unimpressive is not using them correctly.

MrStabby

2018-07-20, 08:25 AM

A twentieth level PDK has two action surges per short rest. He can grant reaction attacks to two allies with each action surge. He'll most the guy with the strongest attacks twice, and the second-strongest twice, unless since of those guys happen not to have a reaction when he needs to Action Surge (due to OA/Sentinel/etc.) in which case he'll boost the third-strongest.

A twentieth level Battlemaster can grant reaction attacks with a bonus action six times per short rest. These can all go to his strongest ally.

In a party where there are a lot of high-damage PCs the PDK may be okay, but the fact that the Battlemaster grants more reaction attacks (if he focuses exclusively on that) and can choose the timing freely is what I referred to when I remarked that the Battlemaster does it better.

PDK doesn't compare to Life Cleric CD because PDK's ability can't be used to bring anyone back from 0 HP, since it requires being able to see or hear, and unconscious creatures can't.

The value of the commander's strike is the difference between the powerful ally attack and the foregone battlemaster attack. The value of the enabled attack from the PDK is that attack itself as the PDK does not forgo one of their attacks to enable someone else. This can make for a very powerful nova round as you generate a lot of extra attacks - battlemaster just swaps a weaker attack for a stronger one.

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 08:35 AM

The value of the commander's strike is the difference between the powerful ally attack and the foregone battlemaster attack. The value of the enabled attack from the PDK is that attack itself as the PDK does not forgo one of their attacks to enable someone else. This can make for a very powerful nova round as you generate a lot of extra attacks - battlemaster just swaps a weaker attack for a stronger one.

Yep, I didn't say PDK had no upsides. But Citan claimed that PDK grants more, and I wanted to set the record straight: they work differently, but PDK never grants more than 2/3 as many attacks as a dedicated Battlemaster, and even that is only in an ideal party where you time your Action Surges to coincide with your allies' reaction availability.

But in that ideal world and circumstance the PDK does indeed grant a stronger party nova.

And yes, the PDK's six extra bonus actions may be able to make up for fewer and somewhat weaker reaction attacks.

It depends. But overall I think the Battlemaster does it better, IF he dedicates himself purely to reaction attacks. The PDK still has Rallying Cry and Bulwark though, plus Persuasion expertise.

Overall I'd say PDKs are not so much weak as play style-specific. I repeat that a whole party full of PDKs + one Merlin would be fun, and an excellent choice for a newbie game.

Willie the Duck

2018-07-20, 08:44 AM

Just have to post to say how strongly I disagree with this. As many people will argue, magic is the strongest thing in ther game, and a Land Druid is a Druid (which is a strong class itself) but with even more magic. I personally consider it the strongest of all Druids.

If any Druid is weak, its the Moon Druid. Yeah, yeah, moon is ther poster child of poorly balanced classes in 5e, and is broken as hell at a few levels. But for the majority of the games levels, including throughout all of tier 2 (arguably the most played levels), it is just a druid that can give up all that actually makes it good in exchange for being a very unimpressive meat bag.

That said, I don't think any Druid is actually weak at all. It's all just relative.

I will sort of agree with MW that Forest land druid is, if not the weakest, it certainly has the most situational spell list (plant growth is great. The rest are going to be campaign dependent) of the land druids. Yes, spells are where the druid's power lies, so being able to get back a bit on a SR and some expansion to the memorized list (or better yet, opening up new spells) is clearly beneficial. So land druid has some clear and obvious use.

Moon Druid is the yin to Champion fighter's yang -- some pretty hefty analyses have been done showing that they are nothing special positively or negatively (although obviously the moon druid that's only true if you average across all levels, and thus if you play at all those levels) that seem fairly convincing -- and still, the moon druid feels strong, while the champion feels weak (which I hate because conceptually I love the idea of the minimal-expendable-resources/complete-anti-nova type). I suspect it has something to do with those levels where the moon druid really works provide a greater sustained rush whereas those individual hits (crits) where the champion's abilities change the tide of a battle feel more transient.

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 08:49 AM

Moon Druid is the yin to Champion fighter's yang -- some pretty hefty analyses have been done showing that they are nothing special positively or negatively (although obviously the moon druid that's only true if you average across all levels, and thus if you play at all those levels) that seem fairly convincing -- and still, the moon druid feels strong, while the champion feels weak (which I hate because conceptually I love the idea of the minimal-expendable-resources/complete-anti-nova type). I suspect it has something to do with those levels where the moon druid really works provide a greater sustained rush whereas those individual hits (crits) where the champion's abilities change the tide of a battle feel more transient.

I suspect those hefty analyses are using faulty assumptions which lead them to false conclusions, e.g. assuming that the Moon Druid is playing like a barbarian, all-in on wildshape all the time, instead of like a fighter/mage.

Daphne

2018-07-20, 08:56 AM

the champion feels weak (which I hate because conceptually I love the idea of the minimal-expendable-resources/complete-anti-nova type). I suspect it has something to do with those levels where the moon druid really works provide a greater sustained rush whereas those individual hits (crits) where the champion's abilities change the tide of a battle feel more transient.

I think the Champion feels weak because you have no control when you'll crit (if you crit at all). There might be sessions when you roll a 19 multiple times, but at the same time some sessions you might not roll a 19 not even once, or do it when it's totally useless.

A lot of groups play mostly at Tier 1 (levels 1-4), and Moon Druid is amazing at those levels.

Willie the Duck

2018-07-20, 09:00 AM

I suspect those hefty analyses are using faulty assumptions which lead them to false conclusions, e.g. assuming that the Moon Druid is playing like a barbarian, all-in on wildshape all the time, instead of like a fighter/mage.

I'm pretty sure that that is not the case. They analyzed it as a spellcaster class who has a backup melee option, which is what a moon druid is, and is a competent, but not earth-shattering, entity. Reams and reams of digital paper have gone into the moon druid, and it has ended up as a decent (if heterogeneous across levels) character type, and nowhere near the brokedidy-broke-brokenness that people seemed to think when 5e first came out.

mephnick

2018-07-20, 09:44 AM

People dismiss it imo mainly (simply?) because it has no defining ability, all can be assimilated to lessened versions of features that other classes have.
But because the fluff in itself is specific, and the abilities aren't shiny, people view it as meh sadly.

No, people dismiss it and view it as meh because it is very weak. The healing is pathetic, the bonus abilities are locked behind uses of very limited things you already have and will grant no bonuses in a lot of situations. You don't get your Action Surge ability until 90% of the way through your average campaign and will probably never reach the ability to affect 2 people.

For the majority of your career your subclass gives you:

1) a negligent bit of healing to people who probably don't need it since it doesn't affect unconscious allies
2) expertise in Persuasion (the best part of the subclass)

It's terrible.

EDIT: Adding some CHA scaling on the abilities makes the subclass much better

Desteplo

2018-07-20, 09:52 AM

If you are talking optimization through multiclassing:
Mostly classes that need the class to benefit (beastmaster ranger, PDK, monks, sorcerers, etc)
But that doesn’t mean no multiclass builds exist. Just need to focus on the ups and down between them.
There’s no “worst” in that case just “hardest”

Having an early and scaling area heal is niche but if you don’t have a cleric amazing. Especially for a fighter who doesn’t otherwise do anything but fight.

Or having an extra body to use for opportunity attacks is great in a positioning battle (tactical)

Some have actually stated a few. But it’s really about finding “enough” HP, heal, ki or points for your party or your build before swapping out

Beastmaster: in my case lacked a full caster after lvl 15. Multiclassed wizard and it was the best decision. After getting “share spells”. What I didn’t get in HP for animal I got in massive utility and defense spells. Notably blur, mirror image, misty step and haste that made all the difference. Alter self helped during the magical damage fights

Naanomi

2018-07-20, 10:03 AM

mephnick

2018-07-20, 10:25 AM

I’m shocked people are so upset about PDK... saying the healing is negligible and utility niche... but aren’t addressing Undying Patron (that offers... a poor spell list, some super fringe utility, and... negligible healing)

Oh, Undying is absolutely terrible, but I don't care about Warlocks so I forget about it. The fact that one class feature lets you ignore everything that causes Exhaustion, but you can still get levels of Exhaustion for ignoring those things because..uh..reasons...is so dumb.

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 11:22 AM

I'm pretty sure that that is not the case. They analyzed it as a spellcaster class who has a backup melee option, which is what a moon druid is, and is a competent, but not earth-shattering, entity. Reams and reams of digital paper have gone into the moon druid, and it has ended up as a decent (if heterogeneous across levels) character type, and nowhere near the brokedidy-broke-brokenness that people seemed to think when 5e first came out.

I'll believe it when I see it. (I.e. when I see the analysis and conclude that its foundations are sound.)

Citan

2018-07-20, 04:07 PM

A twentieth level PDK has two action surges per short rest. He can grant reaction attacks to two allies with each action surge. He'll boost the guy with the strongest attacks twice, and the second-strongest twice, unless since of those guys happen not to have a reaction when he needs to Action Surge (due to OA/Sentinel/etc.) in which case he'll boost the third-strongest.

A twentieth level Battlemaster can grant reaction attacks with a bonus action six times per short rest. These can all go to his strongest ally.

In a party where there are a lot of high-damage PCs or summons the PDK may be okay, but the fact that the Battlemaster grants more reaction attacks (if he focuses exclusively on that) and can choose the timing freely is what I referred to when I remarked that the Battlemaster does it better.

PDK doesn't compare to Life Cleric CD because PDK's ability can't be used to bring anyone back from 0 HP, since it requires being able to see or hear, and unconscious creatures can't.
My bad, my memory was wrong on both accounts (thought Action Surge was 3 times, and missed the point about unconscious for healing). :/
Thanks for pointing out these flaws.
I understand better the disappointment of people now.

No, people dismiss it and view it as meh because it is very weak. The healing is pathetic, the bonus abilities are locked behind uses of very limited things you already have and will grant no bonuses in a lot of situations. You don't get your Action Surge ability until 90% of the way through your average campaign and will probably never reach the ability to affect 2 people.

For the majority of your career your subclass gives you:

1) a negligent bit of healing to people who probably don't need it since it doesn't affect unconscious allies
2) expertise in Persuasion (the best part of the subclass)

It's terrible.

EDIT: Adding some CHA scaling on the abilities makes the subclass much better
Nop, this is still way too strong to say it's "very weak". Sure, abilities's value depend on your party composition. But that is true of many class features when you take some time to look at.
Like Wolf Barbarian: good with one pal without self-advantage, very good with one more, great with 3+... But completely useless if Barb is the only frontliner.
It's a bit of the same with Paladin auras (although at least paladin himself benefits, so the evaluation ranges rather from "very good" to "amazing"), like Devotion aura: in an elves parties, that already have advantage on saves against charming, it's like a nice bit, nothing to stop by.
You could make a similar opinion about Cleric's Spirit Guardians: if you're alone, it's by far the last spell you want to use unless you have been cornered in the first place. If you fight people with decent ranged attack alternatives, it won't help any either.

Saying that healing is pathetic is not far from saying that Healing Words is pathetic. Ok, the former does not apply on unconscious people. Well, what prevents you then to use it on the fly preemptively? You're still giving them a bit more time.
Of course if you have a Cleric, a Bard and a Barbarian in party, your healing will be completely superfluous. But then why would you pick that archetype if you went for optimization?
It's like the aforementioned Wolf Barbarian put in a party with a Hiding Rogue, a Repelling Blaster Warlock and a Light Cleric, wondering why his first ability seems useless. XD

On the contrary, in a party with a Monk, a Rogue and a Ranger for example, PK is possibly the best fit one could hope for: Monk with Stunning Strike, Rogue with Sneak Attack and Ranger with Ensnaring Strike/Lightning Arrow will all be glad to get an extra off-turn chance to land their power.
Plus Monk will also try and get short rests because he depends heavily on it, and with little to no healing (Ranger can learn Healing Spirit, and should, but it's sacrificing a precious spell slot) the latter will be glad to get a chance to take a breather and get some potions or use a hit die as a complement.

PK is one of those several archetypes that you choose because 1) you're a real teamplayer 2) you expect a party composition that makes it fit right in.
In a martial-heavy party, or in groups that dislike magics (they exist, I have proof, I manage one XD) or have no healer (like a Death Cleric in a group that categorically refuses to even prepare a Healing Words. Death is the only thing he wants to help with).

Specter

2018-07-20, 06:04 PM

MaxWilson

2018-07-20, 08:57 PM

PDK's problem is not (only) that it's weak in general, but it's weak compared to other Fighters.

At level 5, PDK will heal 5hp of 3 guys close to him who are conscious. A Battlemaster with Rally and a 12 in CHA can heal 1d8+1 four times, which amounts to the same, except he can do other cooler stuff as well.

To be fair though, by 20th level the PDK features have improved a ton (2x2 short rest reaction attacks, 60 healing per short rest) and the Battlemaster features have improved hardly at all (2 extra superiority dice, more maneuvers, and bigger dice--so something like an extra 20 HP total if you're using them all on Rally, and then he doesn't have any dice for Commander's Strike).

Citan

2018-07-21, 06:23 AM

PDK's problem is not (only) that it's weak in general, but it's weak compared to other Fighters.

At level 5, PDK will heal 5hp of 3 guys close to him who are conscious. A Battlemaster with Rally and a 12 in CHA can heal 1d8+1 four times, which amounts to the same, except he can do other cooler stuff as well.
Yeah, but there is a potential difference in action economy.
Battlemaster will fare better when you fight groups of enemies with one or two people tanking.
PDK will fare better against casters/traps when everyone can be a target.

I agree though that Battlemaster is "better" because you can actually choose what to enhance.
I wonder in fact, since they already experimented the fact to propagate "Manoeuvers-like" abilities, why they just didn't do the same with the Knight... :)

Zalabim

2018-07-21, 08:34 AM

Yeah, but there is a potential difference in action economy.
Battlemaster will fare better when you fight groups of enemies with one or two people tanking.
PDK will fare better against casters/traps when everyone can be a target.

I agree though that Battlemaster is "better" because you can actually choose what to enhance.
I wonder in fact, since they already experimented the fact to propagate "Manoeuvers-like" abilities, why they just didn't do the same with the Knight... :)

As a quickie, call the healing "Rally" call the attack "Strike" and call the saving throw re-roll "Hold" (or something suitably snappy) then give the player the choice of effect to invoke when they use their abilities. I'm thinking to keep the targeting numbers set by the ability used (as in Second Wind triggers 3 effects of your choice), but it could be based on the effect instead if need be.

Fire Tarrasque

2018-07-21, 09:18 AM

MaxWilson

2018-07-21, 09:33 AM

That's about the only things that this gives you. Said spells are extremely under-leveled. For instance, Fireball is locked behind eleventh level. FIREBALL AT ELEVENTH LEVEL. That's a spell casters get at fifth level. Maybe if it was some kind of buffing spell, it would be kind of worth it, but no, it's Fireball. And of course, your fireball costs way, WAY too much to be useful.

Fireball/Fly twice per short rest (plus three stunning strikes) at 11th level isn't bad at all for a warrior who is also mobile, melee-capable and nearly immune to missile fire. For comparison, the Eldritch Knight only gets Fireball twice per long rest at 13th level.

A Mobile elemental monk can kite single strong enemies to death (using Fly if necessary), and use Fireball to kill groups of enemies. It's pretty good at what it does, once 11th level is reached. From levels 1-10 it's a bit meh though.

Specter

2018-07-21, 10:27 AM

Yeah, but there is a potential difference in action economy.
Battlemaster will fare better when you fight groups of enemies with one or two people tanking.
PDK will fare better against casters/traps when everyone can be a target.

I agree though that Battlemaster is "better" because you can actually choose what to enhance.
I wonder in fact, since they already experimented the fact to propagate "Manoeuvers-like" abilities, why they just didn't do the same with the Knight... :)

Yep. To me it feels like they didn't playtest the PDK; there's nothing wrong with getting a bunch of once-per-rest abilities, but they'd better be stellar and not just average. They could even let a friend Action Surge with the PDK, but instead they get... One attack. Sad.

Citan

2018-07-21, 10:36 AM

I mean... Purple Dragon Knight at least does things.

Four Elements Monk gives you Fist of Unbroken Air and Water Whip. And even then, Way of the Open Hand can replicated FUA at close range with just a normal Flurry of Blows. Part of Water Whip too. For no extra Ki I might add.
That's about the only things that this gives you. Said spells are extremely under-leveled. For instance, Fireball is locked behind eleventh level. FIREBALL AT ELEVENTH LEVEL. That's a spell casters get at fifth level. Maybe if it was some kind of buffing spell, it would be kind of worth it, but no, it's Fireball. And of course, your fireball costs way, WAY too much to be useful.
That's pretty much an example of everything else that WOTFE does.
Thanks for this perfect demonstration that you didn't understand anything about 4E, and possibly the whole game balance. :)

Fireball/Fly twice per short rest (plus three stunning strikes) at 11th level isn't bad at all for a warrior who is also mobile, melee-capable and nearly immune to missile fire. For comparison, the Eldritch Knight only gets Fireball twice per long rest at 13th level.

A Mobile elemental monk can kite single strong enemies to death (using Fly if necessary), and use Fireball to kill groups of enemies. It's pretty good at what it does, once 11th level is reached. From levels 1-10 it's a bit meh though.
The pull/push effects are worth the cost imo since they also add damage and are stronger than comparable ones from other archetypes or classes. Of course if you have a Warlock with related invocations you'll feel like you didn't pick the right abilities. XD
But things like Fangs of the Fire Snake are also very helpful imhe at low levels, between the increased reach and fire damage. :)

The only real gripe I'll always have with RAW archetype is the fact you know so few disciplines. Doubling the amount would be enough to keep some difference between Monks of 4e while giving you enough differents things to do. That or giving elemental cantrips.

Sorlock Master

2018-07-21, 03:59 PM

Berserker: Not because of damage but because conceptually you can't run a "classic berserker" two weapon wielding Psycho.

Trickster Cleric: this has an actual power issue. Mostly because duplicity, requires a bonus action. You basically have to multi into rogue to be effective in combat.

Wild Magic Sorcerer: I played with one in the party once. TPKed the entire party with comprehend languages, never ****ing again.

WotFE: Its a little on the underpowered side, but it's still a monk.

Hexblade: is WAY overpowered.

Merudo

2018-07-22, 10:01 AM

I think Land Druid has my vote for weakest subclass, especially Forest. It's so weak that I always forget it even exists.

I will sort of agree with MW that Forest land druid is, if not the weakest, it certainly has the most situational spell list (plant growth is great. The rest are going to be campaign dependent) of the land druids.

I'm always a bit puzzled by claims that the Forest Druid is the worst.

- Spider Climb you never really know if you will need, so having it always prepared is neat.
- Call Lightning is great at long range.
- Plant Growth is probably the best control spell in the game.
- Divination is criminally underrated. Get a possibly campaign breaking secret each day, as a ritual? Yes!
- Freedom of Movement is a decent buff, and doesn't require concentration. Cast together with Plant Growth & other battlefield control spells to devastating effect.
- Commune with Nature can be cast every 11 minutes for free while traveling outdoor, to identify hostile creatures from 3 miles away. You should be constantly casting this while in nature or in caverns.

I'd take Forest instead of Desert or Swamp.

Merudo

2018-07-22, 10:28 AM

If any Druid is weak, its the Moon Druid. Yeah, yeah, moon is ther poster child of poorly balanced classes in 5e, and is broken as hell at a few levels. But for the majority of the games levels, including throughout all of tier 2 (arguably the most played levels), it is just a druid that can give up all that actually makes it good in exchange for being a very unimpressive meat bag.

I disagree with this.

The best thing about the Druid are its concentration spells, and the Moon Druid can easily cast them before turning into a beast.

I would also say the Giant Constrictor Snake, Giant Elk, and Giant Spitting Lizard take some thoughts on how they fit into the party, but all have potential to be rather impactfull.

EdenIndustries

2018-07-22, 03:36 PM

MaxWilson

2018-07-22, 03:52 PM

I'm always a bit puzzled by claims that the Forest Druid is the worst.

- Spider Climb you never really know if you will need, so having it always prepared is neat.
- Call Lightning is great at long range.
- Plant Growth is probably the best control spell in the game.
- Divination is criminally underrated. Get a possibly campaign breaking secret each day, as a ritual? Yes!
- Freedom of Movement is a decent buff, and doesn't require concentration. Cast together with Plant Growth & other battlefield control spells to devastating effect.
- Commune with Nature can be cast every 11 minutes for free while traveling outdoor, to identify hostile creatures from 3 miles away. You should be constantly casting this while in nature or in caverns.

I'd take Forest instead of Desert or Swamp.

Any druid at all can prepare Call Lightning and Plant Growth.

Desert and Swamp are still Land Druids, therefore still weak, but at least they each get access to an interesting spell: Desert/Blur for gishing, Swamp/Stinking Cloud for control. Forest gets Spider Climb (super niche) and Divination (interesting but niche, and available via feats).

Note that Freedom of Movement and Mobile do not exempt you from paying the extra movement cost of Plant Growth, because Plant Growth doesn't create "difficult terrain."

Can we agree that they are all bad subclasses? Not much point in trying to persuade each other which basket of nothing is the most empty.

N.b. That does not mean that a Forest druid is a bad or weak PC. He's still a druid and therefore rather powerful. It just means he's less than he could have been with a different subclass like Shepherd or Moon.

I would also say the Giant Constrictor Snake, Giant Elk, and Giant Spitting Lizard take some thoughts on how they fit into the party, but all have potential to be rather impactfull.

Anything that restains enemies and has a lot of HP is worth taking. Giant Toad at level 4, Giant Constrictor Snake at level 6, Giant Crocodile at 15 are all good choices.

Alright well it seems like Purple Dragon Knight Fighter has a lot of support for being a horrible subclass, so it seems like we can nail that one down!

For Barbarian, there were a few votes for Battlerager. Any thoughts about which is worse - Battlerager or Berzerker? Because actually, as much as the Exhaustion is a stiff penalty I have to say I think I prefer that penalty to the dearth of features the Battlerager gets, so I may change my mind and say Battlerager is worse...

And then how about Beast Master Ranger (non-revised version)? Didn't see too many comments about that one.

Beast Master is not horrible from a power perspective, and allows you to do interesting things like throw Nets to restrain things for your Giant Poisonous Snake pet to bite at advantage. Beast Master is merely annoying from a RP perspective because your pet is basically a zombie that cannot do anything without you babysitting it, unlike every other creature in the game.

Battlerager isn't bad at all, especially against hordes of enemies. It supports the classic Battlerager style "grab enemies, throw them prone, and shred them with your spikes and weapons" pretty well. The only minor problem with it is that if you've got an enemy prone you won't want to use Reckless Attack because you already have advantage, so Reckless Abandon will only get used against hordes that are too numerous to want to grapple.

So overall I'd say Berserker is worse, because it isn't all that good at the one thing you'd expect it to do well: lots of huge attacks. This due to both the action economy of berserking (doesn't kick in until round #2) and the opportunity cost. Overall, if you want to make lots of huge attacks at advantage, you're probably better off just playing e.g. a Mounted Combatant GWM Cavalier than a GWM Berserker. Both builds will have the same stats at level 6 and have similar durability and will make 8 attacks (at advantage, except against Large+ enemies for the Cavalier) over the course of 3 rounds (with up to 3 additional GWM attacks for the Cavalier depending on crits/downed enemies), but the Cavalier's attacks will be front-loaded in round 1 whereas the Berserkers attacks are in rounds 2 and 3, and earlier attacks have more value. Berserker's charm/fear immunity while raging isn't bad but isn't great either, since it's only on the berserker itself and not on the party.

mgshamster

2018-07-22, 06:23 PM

Alright well it seems like Purple Dragon Knight Fighter has a lot of support for being a horrible subclass, so it seems like we can nail that one down!

For Barbarian, there were a few votes for Battlerager. Any thoughts about which is worse - Battlerager or Berzerker? Because actually, as much as the Exhaustion is a stiff penalty I have to say I think I prefer that penalty to the dearth of features the Battlerager gets, so I may change my mind and say Battlerager is worse...

And then how about Beast Master Ranger (non-revised version)? Didn't see too many comments about that one.

I've played both Battlerager and berserker, and I never felt inept with either one. I may not have been as powerful as I possibly could have been - I really don't know - but I never felt lacking in my character.

Merudo

2018-07-22, 11:17 PM

Anything that restains enemies and has a lot of HP is worth taking. Giant Toad at level 4, Giant Constrictor Snake at level 6, Giant Crocodile at 15 are all good choices.

Thanks, I actually didn't know about the Giant Toad. It does seem quite competitive with the Brown Bear and the Dire Wolf, and is the superior choice against single strong enemies.

Any druid at all can prepare Call Lightning and Plant Growth.
Desert and Swamp are still Land Druids, therefore still weak, but at least they each get access to an interesting spell: Desert/Blur for gishing, Swamp/Stinking Cloud for control. Forest gets Spider Climb (super niche) and Divination (interesting but niche, and available via feats).

Why would you ever gish as a Land Druid? Blur is rather bad to begin with, and it's a poor fit for the Druid, who has amazing concentration spells.

Stinking Cloud is also essentially a weaker version of Sleet Storm. Again, why even concentrate on it?

Honestly, I can imagine myself casting Divination nearly every single session, while I'd be surprised to cast Stinking Cloud or Blur at all during a campaign. Access to spells outside the Druid's list is not really a plus if these spells are inferior to what the Druid can already cast. At least, Forest Druids get a few useful spells prepared for free, so they can prepare additional spells.

I also agree with others who said the Land Druid is not weak. I think it is about equivalent to Moon Druid for tier 2, in that the Land Druid can cast more spells but the Moon Druid can use Wildshape instead to save up a few slots.

In my opinion, the ranking for levels 5-9 is Dream < Moon/Land < Shepard, with Shepard at the top because it makes the main strength of Druids at these levels (Conjure Animals & Conjure Woodland Beings) even better.

I'd say that Land Druids are probably the weakest at tier 3/4, though. They don't get any more circle spells, the abilities they get at level 10 and 14 are mediocre, and there is no real synergy with the level 18+ Druid abilities. In a way, Land Druids suffer the same problems Clerics have for Tier 3/4, except Land Druids at least have access to much better high level spells (Reverse Gravity, Feeblemind, Foresight, etc.) than Clerics.

MaxWilson

2018-07-22, 11:54 PM

Why would you ever gish as a Land Druid? Blur is rather bad to begin with, and it's a poor fit for the Druid, who has amazing concentration spells.

Blur isn't bad at all if you have high AC. Normally it's an Eldritch Knight thing or a Wizard thing (esp. Fighter 1/Wizard X), but e.g. a Lizardfolk Land Druid with Dex 14 and a shield has AC 17. Blur + AC 17 = reasonably tough, can let you use Primal Savagery.

Stinking Cloud is also essentially a weaker version of Sleet Storm. Again, why even concentrate on it?

What? They're not the same at all. Stinking Cloud makes enemies lose their actions if they fail their saves. (It's especially nasty if the party has good enough Con saves and/or advantage on poison saves to be able to fight well from inside the Stinking Cloud. Interestingly, druids have a no-concentration 2nd level spell that grants resistance to poison and advantage on saves against poison.) Sleet Storm just makes them lose concentration, which most monsters don't care about, and impairs mobility and makes some creatures fall prone, which doesn't even matter within the sleet storm because everything within the sleet storm is obscured from each other so you won't have disadvantage to attack the prone targets.

Honestly, I can imagine myself casting Divination nearly every single session, while I'd be surprised to cast Stinking Cloud or Blur at all during a campaign.

It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I'd want to cast Divination without also wanting to cast Augury and Commune. Ritual Magic (Cleric) or Book of Shadows or levels in cleric will get you all three.

At a table where the DM gives actually useful information via Augury/Divination/Commune, I'm unlikely to settle for Divination alone, and I'm unlikely to pick Forest Druid specifically to get Divination. The opportunity cost is too high when I could pick a better archetype like Shepherd and just take Ritual Caster (Cleric) and get access to more and better divination spells.

At a table where the DM doesn't give out any useful information (cryptic or unreliable or doesn't fit the adventure format), access to the spell doesn't matter.

I also agree with others who said the Land Druid is not weak. I think it is about equivalent to Moon Druid for tier 2, in that the Land Druid can cast more spells but the Moon Druid can use Wildshape instead to save up a few slots.

I think you're overestimating the value of a spell slot here, and underestimating the importance of action economy. Druids tend to be more concentration-limited than spell slot-limited, so the ability to maintain concentration on a great spell like Conjure Animals and also restrain enemies as a Giant Constrictor Snake or sting them as a Giant Scorpion or Disengage through them and set them all on fire as a Fire Elemental is not to be underestimated. All of these things are possible in Tier 2.

Getting an extra 5th level slot every day is not enough compensation for missing out on that.

(Note though that even a Land Druid can still turn into a Giant Toad at level 8, so limited tanking is still possible. But they can't do it as a bonus action, so they have to either transform pre-combat and lose spellcasting flexibility, or transform during combat and lose an action. IMO the Moon Druid's ability to stay in human shape as long as possible is a crucial advantage for making the most of your spells.)

In my opinion, the ranking for levels 5-9 is Dream < Moon/Land < Shepard, with Shepard at the top because it makes the main strength of Druids at these levels (Conjure Animals & Conjure Woodland Beings) even better.

I think it depends on what kind of enemies you're fighting. Shepherd's main strengths are (1) lots of temp HP for summons, and (2) can penetrate weapon resistance. If you're mostly fighting stuff like mind flayers and dragons, penetrating weapon resistance isn't relevant, and Moon Druid is almost as good at summoning with a better personal action economy, especially considering the potential of feats like Mobile and Sentinel. (Also, just as able to exploit other spells like Call Lightning, Spike Growth, Healing Spirit, etc., and better at keeping concentration on them.) If you're fighting stuff like Glabrezus, then obviously you want Shepherd.

Merudo

2018-07-23, 01:03 AM

Blur isn't bad at all if you have high AC. Normally it's an Eldritch Knight thing or a Wizard thing (esp. Fighter 1/Wizard X), but e.g. a Lizardfolk Land Druid with Dex 14 and a shield has AC 17. Blur + AC 17 = reasonably tough, can let you use Primal Savagery.

Wouldn't it be preferable to cast something like Entangle/Faerie Fire/Spike Growth instead of wading into melee?

What? They're not the same at all. Stinking Cloud makes enemies lose their actions if they fail their saves. (It's especially nasty if the party has good enough Con saves and/or advantage on poison saves to be able to fight well from inside the Stinking Cloud. Interestingly, druids have a no-concentration 2nd level spell that grants resistance to poison and advantage on saves against poison.) Sleet Storm just makes them lose concentration, which most monsters don't care about, and impairs mobility and makes some creatures fall prone, which doesn't even matter within the sleet storm because everything within the sleet storm is obscured from each other so you won't have disadvantage to attack the prone targets.

I did not factor the Stinking Cloud + Poison Resistance combo, which can indeed be rather powerful. However the resources cost to acquire such resistance (typically casting Protection from Poison and/or Heroes Feast) makes it not viable until the higher levels.

Stinking Cloud is awesome in a party full of Dwarves, Stout Halfings, Yuan-ti Purebloods and undead minions, though.

If you are not fighting in the cloud yourself, Sleet Storm is much better. Enemies in the Stinking Cloud can just walk straight out of it - that is not an option for Sleet Storm, which has a far bigger radius of effect and can reduce the speed of enemies to 5 feet per round.

It's hard for me to imagine a situation where I'd want to cast Divination without also wanting to cast Augury and Commune. Ritual Magic (Cleric) or Book of Shadows or levels in cleric will get you all three.

Being able to cast Divination without having to spend a feat or multiclass for 7 levels seems pretty good to me. And scrolls of Divination are extremely rare - good luck finding one.

I think you're overestimating the value of a spell slot here, and underestimating the importance of action economy. Druids tend to be more concentration-limited than spell slot-limited, so the ability to maintain concentration on a great spell like Conjure Animals and also restrain enemies as a Giant Constrictor Snake or sting them as a Giant Scorpion or Disengage through them and set them all on fire as a Fire Elemental is not to be underestimated. All of these things are possible in Tier 2.

Getting an extra 5th level slot every day is not enough compensation for missing out on that.

At the same time, being a Giant Constrictor Snake means you won't able to cast Healing Words on party members with 0 hps, and won't be able to give new instructions to the Conjured Animals.

Being able to cast an extra Conjure spell a day is also pretty rad.

Although, giving it some thoughts, you may be right, the Moon Druid may come a bit ahead here. Restricting an enemy can be invaluable.

I think it depends on what kind of enemies you're fighting. Shepherd's main strengths are (1) lots of temp HP for summons, and (2) can penetrate weapon resistance. If you're mostly fighting stuff like mind flayers and dragons, penetrating weapon resistance isn't relevant, and Moon Druid is almost as good at summoning with a better personal action economy

Each conjured Elk/Wolf has 14/12 hp for the Moon Druid, and 28/26 for a level 6 Sherpard Druid using its totem. That's a very significant difference.

EDIT: Corrected the Elk/Wolf hp bonuses

Galactkaktus

2018-07-23, 05:03 AM

Alright well it seems like Purple Dragon Knight Fighter has a lot of support for being a horrible subclass, so it seems like we can nail that one down!

For Barbarian, there were a few votes for Battlerager. Any thoughts about which is worse - Battlerager or Berzerker? Because actually, as much as the Exhaustion is a stiff penalty I have to say I think I prefer that penalty to the dearth of features the Battlerager gets, so I may change my mind and say Battlerager is worse...

And then how about Beast Master Ranger (non-revised version)? Didn't see too many comments about that one.

Berzerker all the way. He is a much more reliable entity he goes in and does his job when he needs to. My favorite berzerker is a dragonborn with a cone breath weapon since the bonus attack that frenzy gives is not contingent on you taking the attack action.

MaxWilson

2018-07-23, 09:52 AM

Wouldn't it be preferable to cast something like Entangle/Faerie Fire/Spike Growth instead of wading into melee?

It would be preferable to not be a Land Druid at all. But if you want to make a Land Druid who tanks in melee occasionally, I can see the value of Blur. E.g. in a dungeon crawling campaign where the DM likes to make monsters pop up in your face at short range, so keeping them away with Spike Growth/Entangle isn't a realistic option.

As I said before, I don't really want to argue over which basket of nothing is the most empty. You think Desert is weaker than Forest, fine. I think they're all weak.

If you are not fighting in the cloud yourself, Sleet Storm is much better. Enemies in the Stinking Cloud can just walk straight out of it - that is not an option for Sleet Storm, which has a far bigger radius of effect and can reduce the speed of enemies to 5 feet per round.

No, it cannot. Not unless they're oozes or something else really slow. A standard 30' move enemy on difficult terrain moves 15' per round, and then either makes an attack or Dashes for another 15'. If he falls prone from failing his saving throw, he can either stand up and move 22.5' that round (Dashing instead of attacking), or crawl 20', or crawl 10' and make an attack.

And the crucial point is that Stinking Cloud eats enemy actions including attacks, whereas Sleet Storm merely impairs mobility. They are in no way occupying the same niche.

Being able to cast Divination without having to spend a feat or multiclass for 7 levels seems pretty good to me. And scrolls of Divination are extremely rare - good luck finding one.

As a one-off ability it would be nice. When that and a handful of extra spell slots are all you're getting in exchange for giving up Shepherd or Moon features, it's weak.

At the same time, being a Giant Constrictor Snake means you won't able to cast Healing Words on party members with 0 hps, and won't be able to give new instructions to the Conjured Animals.

That's why Moon Druid action economy is so important, so you can stay in human form as long as possible and then transform as a bonus action before taking your real action.

Being able to cast an extra Conjure spell a day is also pretty rad.

You usually don't run out anyway. Moon Druids tend to be more concentration-limited than spell slot-limited.

Although, giving it some thoughts, you may be right, the Moon Druid may come a bit ahead here. Restricting an enemy can be invaluable.

Yeah, among other things it grants all of your animals advantage on their attacks, as well as your fellow PCs, and makes your Moon Druid the obvious big target because until you're dead or neutralized the enemy has disadvantage on all of its attacks. Make sure you've got Warcaster or something because you're going to be taking a lot of hits. :-)

Each conjured Elk/Wolf has 13/11 hp for the Moon Druid, and 27/25 for a level 5 Sherpard Druid using its totem. That's a very significant difference.

Nitpick: your calculations are wrong here. They'd be correct for a level 9 Shepherd Druid, but at level 5 you're only granting 10 temp HP, not 14. It is "5 + druid level". At level 5 it would be 23/21 for elks/wolves.

Yeah, but the conjured elks/poisonous snakes/whatnot from the Moon Druid are (often) attacking at advantage because the Moon Druid (in Giant Constrictor Snake form) has them restrained. They may have temp HP from other sources in the party too--temp HP doesn't stack, so when you've got an Inspiring Leader Cthulock in the party, they wind up at virtually the same HP totals anyway. Even if you don't have other temp HP sources, it's rare for an enemy to chew through all of your animals, because each animals still takes 1-2 hits to take down, and the overkill damage is wasted. E.g. a Young Black Dragon will take two claw attacks or one bite attack to kill a 13 HP elk (attacking at disadvantage if he's restrained), or three claw attacks or two bites to kill a 23 HP elk (not at disadvantage)... and in either case he probably doesn't chew his way through the elks. He primarily goes for the PCs, because he can't afford to waste all of those attacks on a bunch of chaff animals.

It is in this sense that I observed the Moon Druid's animals are almost as strong as the Shepherd Druid's animals--in practice they're almost equivalent, if you're not fighting monsters with weapon resistance. Same thing would apply to a Land Druid or Dream Druid's animals, minus the advantage on attacks from Giant Constrictor Snake restraining.

Shepherd Druid's summons (or any druid's summons with Inspiring Leader support) tend to be better against AoEs though obviously. You don't want a single Fireball to be able to take out your whole army, especially since animals, unlike skeletal minions with ranged weaponry, must clump up in order to coordinate attacks.

Willie the Duck

2018-07-23, 10:52 AM

You usually don't run out anyway. Moon Druids tend to be more spell slot-limited than concentration-limited.

Druids tend to be more concentration-limited than spell slot-limited, so the...

Not disagreeing with anything, just pointing out that unless Moon Druids are an exception to the general rule for Druids, one of these is a typo, creating confusion.

MaxWilson

2018-07-23, 10:55 AM

Not disagreeing with anything, just pointing out that unless Moon Druids are an exception to the general rule for Druids, one of these is a typo, creating confusion.

Thanks, fixed.

strangebloke

2018-07-23, 11:17 AM

I'm hardly going to argue that moon druid is bad from an optimization perspective; if nothing else they allow for some very fun builds, and picking the right animal form for the right situation is an optimizer's dream. They're a very powerful dip class; barbarian 5/moon druid 3 makes for a very potent (and silly) giant elk build.

However, in my experience, moon druids get like 6 good levels. 2-4,18-20.

Combat wildshape gives lots of extra HP, but it comes at a steep cost. Using wildshape in combat prevents using it out of combat. Using wildshape in combat precludes using spells in combat. You can cast and then shift, but if you're frontlining, odds are you'll lose concentration unless you invest heavily in keeping concentration up. meanwhile, except for the levels I listed, their beast/elemental forms have pretty bad damage.

Level 2: Brown Bear deals 1d8 + 2d6 + 8 =19.5 damage. Very good! Awesome damage! Five Stars!

Level 6: Polar Bear deals 1d8 + 2d6 + 10 = 21.5 damage. That's... less exciting. Yes, you can deal more than this, but the allosaurus and giant elks can't deal their good damage every turn.

Level 9: Ankylosaurus deals 4d6 + 4 = 18 damage. Giant Scorpion can deal more, but only if it lands its sting attack with its measly +4 bonus. Very lackluster at this level.

Level 12: Giant Lizard: 28 damage! Hey, that's... well, I mean, the attack bonus is about 3 lower than what everyone else is rocking at this time, and even if everything hits it still deals less damage than a bog standard resourceless fighter with a longsword.. Nice riders to the hits, of course.

Level 15: Fire Elemental! Burn the Heretics! Less good against things that aren't big crowds. If there are big crowds, I feel the need to point out that Artic Land Druid gets a free casting of Cone of Cold six levels earlier than this.

Meanwhile, while Land Druid:Forest does suck, the other Land druid options are pretty solid. You actually get good, non-concentration spells! And free slots to cast them in! Misty Step and Mirror image? Cone of Cold and Slow? Web, Gaseous Form, and greater invisibility? Seems pretty handy to me.

Most I think that Moon gets a better rep because even an awful player is likely going to be functional and isn't going to be a liability. I would argue that Land Druid is at least comparable. Of course, Shepherds Druid is just really good all-round and probably beats both of them.

Galactkaktus

2018-07-23, 12:41 PM

Meanwhile, while Land Druid:Forest does suck, the other Land druid options are pretty solid. You actually get good, non-concentration spells! And free slots to cast them in! Misty Step and Mirror image? Cone of Cold and Slow? Web, Gaseous Form, and greater invisibility? Seems pretty handy to me.

What are those free spell slots you are talking about? Are you reffering to the ones you get from natural recovery?

ciarannihill

2018-07-23, 12:47 PM

Most I think that Moon gets a better rep because even an awful player is likely going to be functional and isn't going to be a liability. I would argue that Land Druid is at least comparable. Of course, Shepherds Druid is just really good all-round and probably beats both of them.

Moon Druid are also super survivable compared to other Druids -- and an alive party member is a contributing party member.

The big issue for Moon Druids for me personally is how they are difficult to make creative builds around because other than the Paladin or Barbarian dips, using your levels in other classes almost always hurts the Moon Druids future potential overall by slowing the rate of higher CR forms, or making them outright impossible. I kind of wish it was less dependent on Druid level, but I also understand why it is.

MaxWilson

2018-07-23, 12:51 PM

Level 12: Giant Lizard: 28 damage! Hey, that's... well, I mean, the attack bonus is about 3 lower than what everyone else is rocking at this time, and even if everything hits it still deals less damage than a bog standard resourceless fighter with a longsword.. Nice riders to the hits, of course.

Wow, I never looked at Giant Subterranean Lizard stats before. The HP aren't great, but the damage isn't half bad (comparable to an Earth Elemental or a Paladin of similar level, about 65% of a GWM Fighter's damage), and knocking prone and restraining are great. It's like getting Giant Crocodile three levels early.

strangebloke

2018-07-23, 12:52 PM

What are those free spell slots you are talking about? Are you reffering to the ones you get from natural recovery?

Yes. I realize that some people never take short rests, but if you're doing that you're probably not running out of spells anyway. In such an instance, Land Druid is nonetheless better than the Moon Druid because you can get concentration-free spells that let you nova a little bit harder than your peers.

Druids, despite being long-rest based, are one of the classes that benefits a lot from long adventuring days.

Galactkaktus

2018-07-23, 01:10 PM

KorvinStarmast

2018-07-23, 01:22 PM

Moon Druids are like Bladesingers: full casters that can switch hit.
Thanks for that post; our gnome Moon Druid was played that way.
Anyone who thinks Moon Druids are unimpressive is not using them correctly. It was interesting how often this helped as we were fighting at lower levels: (Dire Wolf)
Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +5 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) piercing damage. If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 13 Strength saving
throw or be knocked prone. Having advantage on the attack if you are the ally is really nice. Granted, it's not that hard of a saving throw to make by strong opponents, but they will now and again miss. Maybe we were just lucky. At higher levels, knowing when to use a spell, and what spell, and which spells to prepare is as much art as science. She was pretty good at it.

The only real gripe I'll always have with RAW archetype is the fact you know so few disciplines. Doubling the amount would be enough to keep some difference between Monks of 4e while giving you enough different things to do. That or giving elemental cantrips.
I agree with you on both points. need to allow a few more disciplines, and / or toss in a cantrip or two.

strangebloke

2018-07-23, 02:25 PM

Wow, I never looked at Giant Subterranean Lizard stats before. The HP aren't great, but the damage isn't half bad (comparable to an Earth Elemental or a Paladin of similar level, about 65% of a GWM Fighter's damage), and knocking prone and restraining are great. It's like getting Giant Crocodile three levels early.

It is much better than anything else at that level.

Moon druid is really all about the debuffing riders you get on attacks, IMO, or about getting your allies to knock dudes prone so that you can trample them. Otherwise, the damage is pretty meh, and the defensive boons, while incredible, don't really do much for the party as a whole except conserve healing resources.

Ok well personally i see the moon circle druids wildshapes as perfect expendable resources between short rests to save your spellcasting for the bigger fights.
They are! Which is why I say that Land Druids are somewhat comparable. Moon Druids get two wildshapes per long rest which allow them to function in combat without expending spellcasting; Land Druids still get all the out-of-combat wildshape usages and they get a few extra spells per day.

If land druid was a sorcerer archetype it'd be the most broken thing ever. Of course, Druid archetypes are much stronger than sorcerer archetypes in general, but my point is merely that the things that Druid gets are pretty valuable in general.

Daghoulish

2018-07-23, 02:46 PM

Moon Druids get two wildshapes per long rest which allow them to function in combat without expending spellcasting

Wildshape comes back on a short rest. For any druid not just Moon.

Merudo

2018-07-23, 02:51 PM

No, it cannot. Not unless they're oozes or something else really slow. A standard 30' move enemy on difficult terrain moves 15' per round, and then either makes an attack or Dashes for another 15'. If he falls prone from failing his saving throw, he can either stand up and move 22.5' that round (Dashing instead of attacking), or crawl 20', or crawl 10' and make an attack.

And the crucial point is that Stinking Cloud eats enemy actions including attacks, whereas Sleet Storm merely impairs mobility. They are in no way occupying the same niche.

They are actually filling a similar niche, in that most creatures in the Sleet Storm can't attack your party or use abilities that require sight.

And unless a creature uses up it's action for dashing, a creature that fails it's saving throw will only be able to move 7.5' that round (15' if they don't fail the saving throw). Even if dashing, they'll only be able to move 22.5'.

Meanwhile, a creature in the Stinking Cloud can just plain move 30', and the Stinking Cloud takes up 1/4 of the area Sleet Storm does.

As a one-off ability it would be nice. When that and a handful of extra spell slots are all you're getting in exchange for giving up Shepherd or Moon features, it's weak.

Good circle spells can offset this balance and give you non-concentration spells to cast in combat, though.

I would say Land Druids with good circle spells (Arctic, Coast, Underdark, etc) are about equivalent to Moon Druids, while Land Druid with bad circle spells are quite a bit weaker.

You usually don't run out anyway. Moon Druids tend to be more concentration-limited than spell slot-limited.

How many fights per day are you having? With 2 higher level spell slots per day you won't be able to cast them every battle if you have 3+ battles a day. (Conjure Animals only lasts a minute)

I would say the extra spell is quite helpful at level 5-7.

Yeah, among other things it grants all of your animals advantage on their attacks, as well as your fellow PCs, and makes your Moon Druid the obvious big target because until you're dead or neutralized the enemy has disadvantage on all of its attacks. Make sure you've got Warcaster or something because you're going to be taking a lot of hits. :-)

A quick question here - is Warcaster enough to keep concentration? Or would you recommend also getting Resilience (CON)?

Nitpick: your calculations are wrong here. They'd be correct for a level 9 Shepherd Druid, but at level 5 you're only granting 10 temp HP, not 14. It is "5 + druid level". At level 5 it would be 23/21 for elks/wolves.

Thanks. I forgot the Sherpard Druid boosts the hp of summons at level 6 and not 5. I've corrected the numbers.

They may have temp HP from other sources in the party too--temp HP doesn't stack, so when you've got an Inspiring Leader Cthulock in the party, they wind up at virtually the same HP totals anyway.

[...]

Shepherd Druid's summons (or any druid's summons with Inspiring Leader support)

You can't use Inspiring Leader with Conjure Animals - the animals don't stay long enough.

With Conjure Woodland Beings, you'll need to know Sylvan to Inspire all of them. The telepathy from GOO's Awakened Mind can only communicate with a creature at a time, so you won't have time to inspire all 8 pixies before the hour is up.

MaxWilson

2018-07-23, 02:56 PM

Yes. I realize that some people never take short rests, but if you're doing that you're probably not running out of spells anyway. In such an instance, Land Druid is nonetheless better than the Moon Druid because you can get concentration-free spells that let you nova a little bit harder than your peers.

Druids, despite being long-rest based, are one of the classes that benefits a lot from long adventuring days.

Note that regular druids have access to Blight and Ice Storm if they want to blow spell slots on damage. It's a little bit less efficient than Lightning Bolts (Mountain Land Druid), but really none of them are efficient. Lightning Bolt is only relatively less bad, in that it can potentially hit more targets than Blight can while still doing more damage than Ice Storm.

Druids can blow their spells on a nova without costing concentration. They just usually don't.

MaxWilson

2018-07-23, 03:03 PM

How many fights per day are you having? With 2-4 higher level spell slots per day you won't be able to cast them every battle if you have 5+ battles a day. (Conjure Animals only lasts a minute)

No, it lasts an hour. And one good Conjure Animals V will last for multiple non-deadly battles, although you'll probably want to refresh it after a super-deadly battle because most of your animals will be dead.

Since unlike most other conjuring spells it casts in an action instead of a full minute, a smart Moon Druid generally either (1) pre-casts Conjure Animals if someone is available to Inspiring Leader them, or (2) waits to cast it until combat is imminent, and then just hangs on to the animals after the fight until everything in the area is mopped up.

Merudo

2018-07-23, 03:11 PM

No, it lasts an hour

You are completely right. The roll20 compendium erroneously shows Conjure Animals to have a duration of a mere minute, while the PHB states the duration is one hour.

Now that I'm aware of the correct duration, I agree with you that the Moon Druid is better than the Land Druid at tier 2.

Citan

2018-07-24, 05:36 PM

Trickster Cleric: this has an actual power issue. 1. Mostly because duplicity, requires a bonus action. You basically have to multi into rogue to be effective in combat.

Wild Magic Sorcerer: I played with one in the party once. 2. TPKed the entire party with comprehend languages, never ****ing again.

WotFE: Its a little on the underpowered side, but it's still a monk.

Hexblade: is WAY overpowered.
1. Hey, funny you would say that. :)
I had the feeling that most of the gripe people had (with some reason) was the fact it ate your concentration so you couldn't to things like, casting Spirit Guardians on it and send it do your work while you were relaxing with a fresh brew behind a tree dozen feets away. ^^

2. ...
...
Seriously... You *really* expect us to let you go like that after such a high-level tease? You have to tell us... Or was it an unimpressive simple stroke of bad luck such as "Cast Comprehend Languages > roll 1> roll the self-Fireball > roll new characters?" (why the hell do the party stay close to a Wild Magic Sorcerer in the first place? Especially in a social situation XD).

As I said before, I don't really want to argue over which basket of nothing is the most empty. You think Desert is weaker than Forest, fine. 1. I think they're all weak.

No, it cannot. Not unless they're oozes or something else really slow. 2. A standard 30' move enemy on difficult terrain moves 15' per round, and then either makes an attack or Dashes for another 15'. If he falls prone from failing his saving throw, he can either stand up and move 22.5' that round (Dashing instead of attacking), or crawl 20', or crawl 10' and make an attack.

And the crucial point is that Stinking Cloud eats enemy actions including attacks, 3. whereas Sleet Storm merely impairs mobility. They are in no way occupying the same niche.

1. It's a bit sad you think they are weak. ^^ Having 30% more spell slots, to start, is no small feat: it's a few more niche spells you can afford to cast, one more situation in which you can make all party sneak with Pass Without Trace, or maybe one more Conjure Animals because of bad-luck early Concentration break.
The extra spells are also great for most: even for Forest, having Plant Growth (one of the best 10 spells of all games imo ;)), Divination (confer Merudo's presentation, YMMV) and Insect Plague (difficult terrain, obscured area, and per-round damage over a 20-feet radius area? What's not to like) prepared is good. Honestly the fact that most spells are already on your list is not a big deal. Sure, as everyone, I prefer other choices that bring in more out-of-Druid exclusives. But those are good spells, so chances are I would use them anyways.
Of course my favorites will still be Arctic, Grassland, Coast and Underdark: having a way to get either Slow or Haste is great when you don't have a Sorcerer/Wizard in party (or even then in fact, not every caster likes those spells, understandably since there are so many great concentration spells), and Mirror Image / Blur is great on multiclass. As for Underdark, so many different control spells is like a Christmas tree.

Then comes the synergy with Land Stride, since many spells don't actually create "magical difficult terrain or magical plants" but just terraform naturally existing terrain/plants to make it difficult: Earth Tremor, Plant Growth coming from memory, but I recall there are about a dozen of them.
(Edit: checked text to be sure for those interested)
Land's Stride: "moving through nonmagical difficult terrain costs you no extra movement. You can also pass through nonmagical plants without being slowed by them and without taking damage from them if they have thorns, spines, or a similar hazard".
Earth Tremor: "If the ground in that area is loose earth or stone, it becomes difficult terrain until cleared, ".
Erupting Earth: "Additionally, the ground in that area becomes difficult terrain until cleared."
Plant Growth: "This spell channels vitality into plants within a specific area.""If you cast this spell using 1 action, choose a point within range. All normal plants in a 100-foot radius centered on that point become thick and overgrown. "
Of course, there is the potential trouble of bothering your allies, if your party is geared towards melee. But practice and communication usually make short work of that trouble.

The one thing that probably makes you see it as inferior is the intrisical situationality of 10th and 14th level features. Compared to Moon Druid's "choose elemental form" or Shepherd's "further enhance your main schtick" this indeed lack a bit of shiny. :)
But, even if you don't get new extra spells anymore, let's not forget that all those extra spells of before *are Druid spells for you*. Although unfortunately many imported spell have material requirement, once you get "cast as Wild Shape" those extra slots and variety come in handy. :)

2. You should notice that you just demonstrated yourself how, one way or another, Sleet Storm is nearly as effective as Stinking Cloud in the particular use-case you wanted to show off, being creatures on ground... ^^
We'll assume for that reasoning that the target creature is in the center of the cloud (of course not the most recurrent case, but it's much simpler ^^).

Stinking Cloud takes effect at start of creature's turn, so (let's assume a failed save) it does waste action, but can simply move away: on next turn it'll be pumping again. Unless, of course, you had the good taste to cast it over a Plant Growth in which case you may get at least one more round of tranquillity.
Sleet Storm also technically takes effect at start of a creature's turn. For the creature to be free of movement and actions on next round, it *must* use its action on Dashing: 15+15 = out.
So far, Sleet Storm and Stinking Cloud are equal in result, except that no roll was involved.

If it failed the save, and went prone, then with as you said 22.5 feet available (detailing for people who may like: 30 feet starting, stand up costs 15, Dash gives extra "normal speed" so you have 30 feet more, total 45 feet divided by 2 because difficult terrain).
On ToTM, no problem, you went out. Once again, SS = SC.
On grid, I wonder what RAW would be, but I'm not sure a DM would consider you can "enter" the case that is entirely out of the AoE since you only technically have half the required speed.

If it failed the save, and went prone, and decide to crawl all the way, since it's difficult terrain, EVEN with Dash, you'd still end within the area.
SS = SC.
And if it decides to attack while prone, it will be at disadvantage so even provided it can see a valid target, it's still a win.

Now, of course, in "real-life" (in quotes, we're talking about a game after all ^^) situations, of course creatures will more often be into the outer zone than the inner, so, *without added control applied*, and *provided creatures fail Constitution saves* (which many are good at succeeding, more than on Dex anyways ^^) indeed SC fares better in many situations.
Although...

3. Err... No. You missed the crucial point as well. Two even in fact.
First, the obvious: Sleet Storm reduces mobility (SC? Check), reduces enemy attacks (SC? Check, often better at that) AND FORCES A CONCENTRATION SAVE.
*Every*. *Single*. *Round*.
That indeed seems not much, or rather, too situational to be a great benefit.

Now, pairs that with Plant Growth.
Whether the DM goes with the "commonly agreed upon" stacking rule (taking example of PHB, 1 feet becomes 2 in difficult terrain, so 1 feet of movement would cost 5 feet speed in total) or a more RAW articulation (although I don't pretend having a good idea on how to do that ^^), technically you effectively lock people in place. Except casters having access to Misty Step? Nop, it requires "a space you can see". Except casters having access to Dimension Door then, or Freedom of Movement applied, or Haste, none of them being particularly common occurences imx. :)

Because the thing with Stinking Cloud and Sleet Storm is: both can cripple your allies as well. So both can be annoying as hell for your friends, or at the very least difficult to work with or requiring particular characters.
Sleet Storm, on that aspect, has a double edge over Stinking Cloud.
1. Against casters, you can have a much more reliable effect (confer above: making caster lose one round because Constitution fail is great, but it won't affect concentration. And casters usually are bad at Constitution and Dex saves alike, so imparing speed can work better in keeping them affected several rounds).
2. It's much easier to have allies with good DEX saves than allies with good CON saves. In the latter, you have Barbarians, Fighters and Sorcerers (what are they doing here? ^^), later Paladins, and much later Monks. Of course you have Resilient feat, but it's something usually taken at level 8 or 12, so late compared to when you start using those spells.
In the former, you have right of the bat, Barbarians (Danger Sense), Bard (proficiency), Monk (proficiency, Evasion), Ranger (proficiency), Rogue (proficiency, Evasion).
So while you don't completely resolve the "seeing target" problem, the fact you have so many people being able to dart in and out without risking falling prone (just suffering difficult terrain, except Ranger or anyone you buffed with Freedom of Movement) AND attacking targets who are likely prone (meaning disadvantage from not seeing is cancelled) makes it a much easier spell to use in many different parties, and against a larger array of creatures.

Second, the less obvious: Stinking Cloud and Sleet Storm both are cast "on a point you choose within range": so both can be cast just above the ground or much above.
The thing though is: against flying creatures, Stinking Cloud, well, stinks: at best you'll get one round, never more: since you just reduce speed, with flyers usually having 60 feet speed base, they won't care *at all*.
Plus you have only 90 feet to work with, and 20 feet height to affect.
With many characters having ranged attacks up to 120 feet, flyers would usually keep above that threshold.

Enter Sleet Storm: 150 feet straight (same as a longbow), with potential ability to upgrade that maximum height depending on environment with other Druid spells or Wild Shape.
40 feet height, better margin, easier to work.
AND, more importantly, IT IS A PRONE EFFECT.
Creature flying, on a failed save, is, well, not so much anymore. Straight fall to the ground, ready to be ganged upon by close-by friends, and possibly suffering fall damage.

So, I would not say they are filling very different niches. I'd rather say they are filling somewhat similar ones, but with different "entry parameters". :)
But if I had to choose one "blindly", I'd definitely pick Sleet Storm, no regrets, because of all those things making it usable in more situations, more easily, with more predictable results.

No, it lasts an hour. And one good Conjure Animals V will last for multiple non-deadly battles, although you'll probably want to refresh it after a super-deadly battle because most of your animals will be dead.

Since unlike most other conjuring spells it casts in an action instead of a full minute, a smart Moon Druid generally either (1) pre-casts Conjure Animals if someone is available to Inspiring Leader them, or (2) waits to cast it until combat is imminent, and then just hangs on to the animals after the fight until everything in the area is mopped up.
My experience is very different to yours, unless when parties are built around (Shepherd Druid with ally using Aid + Inspirint Leader feat, conjuring a few high-level creatures).
For "plain Conjured Animals"?
You are speaking about Conjure Animals V, so a 5th level spell, so characters level 9.
No idea about what average is in official campaigns, but in my games at least PCs start facing creatures or casters with decent AOE traps/spells.
Wolves or the like would be decimated by a Shatter, even a Bear would be killed in one round by one or two enemies with plain weapon attacks.
Not saying it's bad, they took the heat for PCs...
Just saying that it's imo unlikely that your beasts survive even a simple hard fight if enemy has some time to organize.

Now indeed, a proper conjuration build is very, *very* nasty. :)

You can't use Inspiring Leader with Conjure Animals - the animals don't stay long enough.

With Conjure Woodland Beings, you'll need to know Sylvan to Inspire all of them. The telepathy from GOO's Awakened Mind can only communicate with a creature at a time, so you won't have time to inspire all 8 pixies before the hour is up.
You should really take more time to read the rules. :)
The one-hour is the time for taking a short-rest, which is necessary to restore the possibility of using Inspiring Leader.
It's not the actual use of it, which takes only 10 minutes.
So it perfectly works to have buffed Conjured Animals for the remaining 50 mn.

Or, you can maximize and multiclass into Divine Soul Sorcerer to apply upcast Aid after Extending the Conjuration, so you have ample time to buff them and maybe even take a rest before the fight, but that's really putting every egg in the same basket, not sure it would worth efficiency-wise. ^^

However, one should not that if the DM follows RAW, there is a big caveat with Inspiring Leader on animals (beyond the fact it's up to 6 creatures, so best used on few high-CR beasts unless solo character): to take the benefits, they must be "able to understand you".
One could not reasonably pretend that beasts would, by default, understand all words of your monologue (the point of the feat is inspiring the soul with pretty words after all). Although this is admitedly a gray area since, on another hand, Conjure Animals specify you can "give verbal commands". So it's up to each DM to decide how far he would admit the level of "natural understanding of human language" of those animals.
Answer of course is the "Speak with Animals ritual"!
But then could one pretend there is an universal language for animals? I'd say, reasonably, not.
So you'd have to summon only the same kind of animal, otherwise you'd lose much time repeating your words in different animal languages (although that could make for an epic piece of roleplay ^^).
Then comes the last bit, people seem to forget: DM has the final say in what you get with those spells: you can emit wishes, and the DM is welcomed to follow them, but has no obligation to. :)