Ability Combos

[ZenBear]

So I've been playing Dragon Age: Inquisition again lately for inspiration in my campaign, and it has turned out to be a gold mine. So many excellent stories, NPCs and entire adventures condensed into each region! It would seriously be a great business move for Bioware to write these as D&D adventure books.

That aside, I was also struck by how much fun ability combos are. When your mage freezes a foe in place, your warrior can shatter them with a special attack for bonus damage. I find it sad that D&D doesn't have these sort of directly cooperative features in play. The best we get is things like Grease knocking foes down for your melee fighters to gain advantage, or casting Leomund's Tiny Hut over your archer's nest.

What sort of combos do you find useful in 5e currently, and what sort of combos would you like to see added in? Has anyone come up with some homebrew spells or abilities with this kind of cooperative intent?

[JackPhoenix]

Hold and smite is always nice. As is Hold and sneak attack. Or Hold and anything else involving attack roll and a lot of dice.

[ZenBear]

Hold and smite is always nice. As is Hold and sneak attack. Or Hold and anything else involving attack roll and a lot of dice.

Right but that's very similar to the Grease example I gave. It's not quite what I'm looking for.

[MaxWilson]

What sort of combos do you find useful in 5e currently, and what sort of combos would you like to see added in? Has anyone come up with some homebrew spells or abilities with this kind of cooperative intent?

A fun one I noticed just the other day while browsing the PHB: Tavern Brawler does not require the Attack action! So if my hypothetical Forge Cleric 1/Enchanter 6 casts Booming Blade on an enemy to attack the enemy with a sonic chair leg, he can bonus action grapple the enemy. (Assume for the sake of argument that I have good Strength and Athletics proficiency and am likely to succeed.) Then the wolves and/or elks conjured by the druid can dash by and knock the enemy prone as soon as it fails one of its saves. Now it is both grappled and prone and we didn't have to give up a single attack to do it.

I don't know if it would ever really be worth taking Tavern Brawler just to enable this combo, but I thought it was interesting anyway.

Other good combos include skeletons and Stinking Cloud to grapple and incapacitate enemies within the cloud, or Cloudkill and Wall of Force to kill anything not immune to poison that cannot teleport, or Pass Without Trace and Invisibility V for infiltration.

[ImproperJustice]

Anything that restrains (earthen grasp, entangle, web) followed by heavy area damage spells that require Dex Saves.

Slow + any ability that drains movement.

Sickening Radiance + Any Wall spell.

[JackPhoenix]

Right but that's very similar to the Grease example I gave. It's not quite what I'm looking for.

Hold X spells are better than just advantage, as you autocrit against paralyzed creatures, making it similar to the freeze effect you've mentioned.

Another fun is some way to hold the victim in place (Wall of x, Forcecage), and AoE damage over time spell (Wall of Fire, Cloudkill, Sickening Radiance). As both effects usually take concentration, you'll need 2 casters to pull it off.

Polymorphing something into a harmless creature, then drowning it also works.

[MagneticKitty]

One that myself as a moon druid and our Warlock found out: hex giving disadvantage on athletics checks plus giant spider's web which consumes actions to perform athletics checks to escape. Then you launch projectiles at it. Only works on one large non fire based enemy with no range. Worked good on the the monster we fought tho

[CBAnaesthesia]

If you have a character (A) with Booming Blade and Warcaster, and another (B) with an effect that makes an enemy use their movement (like Fear or Dissonant Whispers), it's fantastic.
A uses Booming Blade on their turn, then B forces movement, triggering the extra Booming Blade damage. Then A gets an opportunity attack, uses Booming Blade, and forces another round of extra Booming Blade damage, since the enemy has to continue using their movement.

Also, for control purposes the classic Silence+Grapple trick still works very well to shut down spellcasters.

[Ganders]

Creating an area effect and then pushing people in and out of it actually causes more damage than keeping the person held in it.

Clould of Daggers, for instance, says it does damage each time they "enter the area for the first time on a turn", but not when the spell is cast on top of them. So cast the spell right behind them, not on top of them, and then use shove or Repelling Blast or something to push them into it.

It's also possible to argue that they could take damage repeatedly by being pushed back and forth through the area. So four warlocks could each use Repelling Blast to cause the victim to take damage four times (once on each warlock's turn). But this means the victim takes far more damage than if he were in the daggers the whole time... not everyone will interpret "turn" that way.

[Chijinda]

Not much of a doom combo, but I always liked the idea of combining Animal Messenger and Beast Sense. Pick an a guard outside an enemy camp and wait for his shift to end. Then use Animal Messenger to deliver some innane message to him, and use Beast Sense on the Animal. Boom. Instant, free scout, that will alert you to traps, guard posts and a general layout of the camp.

[Rixitichil]

Sickening Radiance and Web, (or similar restraining spell.)
The Radiance both gradually deals damage over time and inflicts levels of exhaustion, the first level of which makes it a lot harder to escape from the Web.

Mastermind Rogue using a Bonus Action to Aid Another so a significant single target spell hits, (which ideally gives them advantage on their next attack.) A Cleric's Guiding Bolt is a good low level example.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

Spike growth+ thornwhip/repelling blast+grasp of Hadar. This is one of my favorites.

[Derpldorf]

Fast Hands lets you(among other things) use the Use an Object action (Alchemists items) or use a potion or poison as a bonus action.

Tavern Brawler (among other things) allows you to use your proficiency modifier with improvised weapons. Alchemists items and poisons/potions count as improvised throwing weapons when tossed. You can now chuck vials of contact poison and smoke bombs with skill and finesse.

The Alchemists/Poisoners/Herbalists kits can be learned in your downtime and allow you to stock up on ingredients, identify things in their wheelhouse and innumerable other applications outside of crafting.

You can be Alchemist lite with the application of exactly three levels of Rogue, one feat and some downtime.

[JackPhoenix]

Fast Hands lets you(among other things) use the Use an Object action (Alchemists items) or use a potion or poison as a bonus action.

Potions are magic items, so they aren't used with Use an Object. Stupid, but them's the rules: "If an item requires an action to activate, that action isn't a function of the Use an Item action, so a feature such as the rogue's Fast Hands can't be used to activate the item."- DMG p.141


Tavern Brawler (among other things) allows you to use your proficiency modifier with improvised weapons. Alchemists items and poisons/potions count as improvised throwing weapons when tossed. You can now chuck vials of contact poison and smoke bombs with skill and finesse.

Skill (proficiency), yes, finesse (dexterity), no. They lack the finesse quality, and aren't actually ranged weapons, you you'll have to use your Str for attack rolls with them.

[solidork]

Some combos that my Cleric and our Sorcerer talked about but never tried:
-Polymorph and Divine Word to instantly kill
-My cleric has a sword that can stun someone once per day + Disintegrate

[nickl_2000]

Some combos that my Cleric and our Sorcerer talked about but never tried:
-Polymorph and Divine Word to instantly kill

This may be RAW, but is not RAI at all. Jeremy Crawford talked about it in one of the episodes of the Dragontalk podcast (the one talking about Polymorph).

[nickl_2000]

How about Anti-Life Shell and then have (True) Polymorph into something with a 10-15 foot reach?

[Derpldorf]

Potions are magic items, so they aren't used with Use an Object. Stupid, but them's the rules: "If an item requires an action to activate, that action isn't a function of the Use an Item action, so a feature such as the rogue's Fast Hands can't be used to activate the item."- DMG p.141



Skill (proficiency), yes, finesse (dexterity), no. They lack the finesse quality, and aren't actually ranged weapons, you you'll have to use your Str for attack rolls with them.

Oh, right... I guess i fell into the trap of houserules so prevalent my circle doesn't even think about it anymore. I suppose yes with that illogical and dumb restriction in place you would have to dedicate a full action to using a potion, making the combination less optimal, if still quite viable.

And i meant the dictionary definition of finesse not the weapon quality.