Fighting fellow players

[Name2020]

My DM recently told my party that we are doing a tournament. This tournament will be in tandem with another party he runs. I don't know if this is a scumbag thing to do. But I was wondering some of the best ways to fight my fellow D&D players (All of us are level 3). Two of the other parties characters I am most scared about is their Warlock and Barbarian. Their Warlock is a Fiend Patron Drow and running Pact of the Chain. He recently told me he is going to use a quasit or psuedodragon, and while looking at their stat block I noticed they were quite weak, with pseudodragon seeming to be a better choice in my opinion. The Barbarian is a Dragonborn but i don't know the Path she is choosing but we are only doing PHB material so she can only choose Beserker or Totem (but let's be honest she is going to pick Totem).

[Man_Over_Game]

Players generally deal more damage and have less health than most monsters. This is a design decision that's pretty common with any Player vs. Monster system. Try playing any Final Fantasy game and note that your characters regularly deal enough damage to kill another unit of your party multiple times over through a fight. In DnD (5e in particular), this is no different. This does mean that dealing damage quickly will solve any problems when combating player classes, in a highly unbalanced way.

The pseudodragon may be used to grant advantage on an attack by it using the Help action. Likely, with the Pact Blade, it may be packing Darkness and Devil's Sight, so try to kill him as soon as you can, otherwise he'll create a lot of chaos as he butchers your team up. Don't even let his initiative take place, and use AoE spells to deal with him if Darkness is up. He's squishy, so you shouldn't have too much to worry about in regards to him.

The Barbarian will be a pain. If you can kite him, good, otherwise you might just have to deal with him the boring way. Ironically, in this fight, the burst damage on the Berserker is actually a lot more useful in a fight like this.

Don't bother focusing the Barbarian, focus on the other two. Even though he can deal some solid damage, you'll get a lot more mileage getting rid of individual targets out of the fight rather than focusing on the Barbarian for 2-3 turns.

One last tip is to focus the squishiest target with the lowest initiative. Doing so means you removed one more action against you in the action economy, which may put you ahead enough to win.

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Now, this is all assuming this is a combat 3v3 tournament, rather than some kind of skill challenge (like a pie eating contest).

[Wildarm]

Fighting another party, best be fast and brutal. Whoever wins initiative will have a big advantage. Work as a team and prioritize your targets.

- Kill healers first - Cleric/Bard/Paladin - Anyone who can spend an action or bonus action to bring someone back into the fight
- Then spellcasters
- Then DPS
- Then Tank

At level 3, you're all still quite squishy so anyone with a decent nova capability will be very useful like a Paladin or a Sorcerer to take out their healer before anyone can respond.

If you're dealing with smaller groups, an upcast sleep spell may be the gambit you need. A decent roll will easily take out 1-2 characters guaranteed. Even if it only wastes an action or two for the opposing team, that may be enough to gain advantage in the fight. Great spell to bust out half way through an even fight. Could easily take out 2-3 wounded enemies without a save. Just watch out as elves/half elves are immune. Be sure to keep them out of the spell AOE.

Specific tactics for dealing with:

Barbarian - Getting him to break his rage 2x makes him much less effective as a threat and a tank. Command spell, Hold Person, Sleep all accomplish this. Generally, you want to ignore him as much as possible until he's the last man standing.

Warlock - Tough to deal with Darkness + Devil's sight before Level 5. Prioritize AOEs tagging this guy. If you have a druid, wildshape into a form with blindsight and grapple him and knock him prone if he is ranged. Kill his dragon if it leaves the sphere of darkness. You may just have to accept that he'll likely be hitting you each round and will be difficult to hit.

In the end, a lot of this fight will come down to luck in rolls. Good initiative for one team can mean the other team will start the fight with a man down. It will snowball quickly from there. As a DM, I might double everyones HP to make this a more dynamic/longer fight.

[Name2020]

The tournament is split between 5v5 and 1v1. Focusing on the 5v5. My teams composition is a human cleric healbot domain, half-elf ranger beast hunter archetype, tiefling circle of the sea druid, half-elf bard college of lore, and me as the eldritch knight fighter. Also while talking to the Warlock he said he was getting a psueododragon, quasit, or imp. He doesn't have the Darkness spell, but he loves to talk about how his Hellish Rebuke is OP. I also have to clarify that I will kill of my character in order to play as a Drunken Master Monk. But I do want to know if this is the right character to go for my team comp. I just really don't like the Fighter in general.

[Man_Over_Game]

The tournament is split between 5v5 and 1v1. Focusing on the 5v5. My teams composition is a human cleric healbot domain, half-elf ranger beast hunter archetype, tiefling circle of the sea druid, half-elf bard college of lore, and me as the eldritch knight fighter. Also while talking to the Warlock he said he was getting a psueododragon, quasit, or imp. He doesn't have the Darkness spell, but he loves to talk about how his Hellish Rebuke is OP. I also have to clarify that I will kill of my character in order to play as a Drunken Master Monk. But I do want to know if this is the right character to go for my team comp. I just really don't like the Fighter in general.

Do you have Absorb Elements? A powerful counter to his Hellish Rebuke (which will majorly burn anyone who it gets set on) would be to just:


Hit him really hard.
Trick him into activating Hellish Rebuke from his attack.
Use Absorb Elements to halve it and all Fire damage against you (reminder that Fiend is a fire-specialist caster)
Next turn, hit him or the Barbarian really hard with your fire stick.

[HappyDaze]

Ignore their PCs and go straight after the other players. Trick them into saying something "-ist" and then threaten to spam it all over social media unless they concede.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

Ignore their PCs and go straight after the other players. Trick them into saying something "-ist" and then threaten to spam it all over social media unless they concede.

Sneaky. I love it.

[Skyblaze]

What are you playing as?

[CTurbo]

Will you know what you're up against?
Will you be able to prep at all?

If you know who you're up against, I would focus on the alpha strikers which would be characters like Tempest Cleric, Assassin, Fighter, or Paladin

Initiative is huge here

Then I would focus on the buffers/debuffers like Bards, Clerics, Paladins

Play smart. Don't attack the Barbarian with weapons. Attack the Barbarian with Wis and Cha save or suck spells. etc...

I wouldn't be too concerned about the Warlock. Just have somebody prepare counterspell and make the Warlock waste their precious few slots.

[Man_Over_Game]

What are you playing as?

I think you skipped over this:


My teams composition is a human cleric healbot domain, half-elf ranger beast hunter archetype, tiefling circle of the sea druid, half-elf bard college of lore, and me as the eldritch knight fighter. [...] I also have to clarify that I will kill of my character in order to play as a Drunken Master Monk. But I do want to know if this is the right character to go for my team comp. I just really don't like the Fighter in general.

[Skyblaze]

I think you skipped over this:

I did, indeed.

So, eldritch knight at level 3? Shield, absorb elements, two weapon fighting.

[Man_Over_Game]

I did, indeed.

So, eldritch knight at level 3? Shield, absorb elements, two weapon fighting.

RAW, depending on how strict the DM is, the player can't use Shield/Absorb Elements and TWF at the same time.

Need a free hand to cast those Somatic spells. Can't have a free hand without stowing one of the weapons. You only have one free Object Interaction per turn, and drawing or stowing counts as an Object Interaction each.

Even if you had the Dual Wielder feat, it lets you draw/stow two weapons at once, not have two free object interactions to stow/draw weapons.

Many people don't care, but it's technically not a legal play. Most EK's use two-handed weapons to work around this exact problem.

[Skyblaze]

Ah damn, forgot about that part of spells (been playing a free hand sorcerer)

[Name2020]

Ignore their PCs and go straight after the other players. Trick them into saying something "-ist" and then threaten to spam it all over social media unless they concede.

Good idea, I think one of them said ni**a and another said something about autism so I got evidence.

[Name2020]

RAW, depending on how strict the DM is, the player can't use Shield/Absorb Elements and TWF at the same time.

Need a free hand to cast those Somatic spells. Can't have a free hand without stowing one of the weapons. You only have one free Object Interaction per turn, and drawing or stowing counts as an Object Interaction each.

Even if you had the Dual Wielder feat, it lets you draw/stow two weapons at once, not have two free object interactions to stow/draw weapons.

Many people don't care, but it's technically not a legal play. Most EK's use two-handed weapons to work around this exact problem.

It's our first D&D campaign so he isn't worrying about materials. Plus I have War Caster Feat.
I'm Heavy Weapons fighting too