Need suggestions. Worst luck Ever

[Surtur08]

I am down in the dumps. I can't hit on attack roll to save my life for SEVERAL game sessions now. Regardless of what I play now, what would be the best character I can play, where I will roll the less amount of dice possible?

Thanks in advance...

[Potato_Priest]

Buff Wizard. Wizards have the best spell list for buffs in the game, so you can just load up on teammate assistance and utility spells, without any rolls required.

Also, if you haven’t already, try changing your dice. I had this set of translucent blue dice once, and woof... I don’t know if they were all cursed, because the d20 was bad enough that I never got to use any of the others.

[CTurbo]

Archer Champion Fighter with Archery Style and Longbow. Bump Dex at level 4 and maybe even level 6. With a 18-20 Dex and the +2 from Archery you'll rarely miss.

Ranger is a great alternative

[MagneticKitty]

Anything that does saving throws instead of attack rolls. Divine wizard let's you dish out saving throw spells and use your sucky rolls for the dm to use.
Or wild magic might let you activate it more if it's crit ones.

But I'd tell ya, you don't want less rolls you want more. If you want accuracy on a melee character:

Kobold dex paladin with find steed
Take dire wolf
Or kobold revised beastmaster ranger with a wolf companion you ride.
That way you Always have pack tactics on when not in sunlight. So when in a dungeon youre going to have advantage on attacks. And your wolf will too.

Even accuracy / sharpshooter bow fighter gets a lot of mods to their to hit.

[Surtur08]

Thanks guys. I m actually a archer bard right now. Lvl 6. But we have a veteran group that has a house rules against beibg very good before 8. Can't have a stat at 18 or better before eight. So all the classes that seem powerhouse don't work.

I feel like I need a speelcaster that would have spells that need saving throws a lot.

[CTurbo]

Go Dwarf heavy armor Cleric and just boost Wis. Spirit Guardians is great.

[Rukelnikov]

I am down in the dumps. I can't hit on attack roll to save my life for SEVERAL game sessions now. Regardless of what I play now, what would be the best character I can play, where I will roll the less amount of dice possible?

Thanks in advance...

I played a character from 9 to 13 that never carried a weapon or did a single attack roll, and it was pretty effective. The one I played was a Hill Dwarf Cleric/Lore Bard, that spammed Spirit Guardians, Guardian of Faith or Vicious Mockery, and had Dwarven Fortitude (spend Hit Dice to heal yourself when you dodge).

However, there are many builds that work:

Evocator:
Pick magic missile and spam that for your entire career, that's it, never gonna have to do a single attack roll, 90% of the time you are gonna deal damage (that 10% accounts for the DM now and then putting enemies capable of casting shield or with some kind of protection against it, if that the ONLY thing you do its gonna happen now and then). You still have the whole out of combat utility of a wizard, and can change your concentration depending on whats needed.

At lvl 6th you get a feature that buffs your saving throw cantrips, which is exactly what you want, if you get Create Bonfire you can spend your Con in that getting 2 sources of guaranteed damage without spending resources.

At 10th lvl you add your Int to your evocation spells damage, MM adds it to every missile, so it will be a MAJOR damage bump for you.

Healer:
Generally speaking healing in combat doesn't tend to be the most effective technique, a dedicated healer increases the chances of surviving encounters, but decreases the staying power of the party, since each encounter is longer due to having 1 less person dealing damage, and thus more resources are spent per fight.

Having said that, you can play an Order Cleric, throw a lowest level healing word per round to an ally to grant HIM an attack, so you would still be "doing damage", just not rolling dice, spend your action in Sacred Flame or Toll the Dead, or one of the many save or suck spells that the domain grants.

Battlefield Controller:
Hardest to pull since it requires a lot of understanding of the battle and that your party members play around the "benefits" your are creating for them. It involves mostly using spells that create conditions on the battlefield, preferably those where there is no roll involved, like splitting the enemies with a wall of force so your party can focus on smaller groups of enemies, or using scatter to rearrange how your party is positioned. At low level you got things like Fog Cloud which puts the heavily obscured condition in an area, or earth tremor that makes an area difficult terrain.

[Keravath]

Anything where either:
1) You are buffing your team mates ... bless/haste/etc
2) Forcing opponents to make a saving throw

In either of these situations you aren't rolling any dice.

-----

However, you mention that your game has a house rule about not having stats of 18 or more before level 8 to prevent power creep. Does this group also ban feats? Swapping in feats like Sharpshooter/crossbow expert/great weapon master/polearm master since they can't take a stat boost is actually increasing rather than decreasing the power level.

In your case, as an archer, take the crossbow expert and sharpshooter feats and then carry a hand crossbow and long bow or heavy crossbow as your main weapons. The hand crossbow will let you attack 3x per turn at level 6. The more times you roll the dice, the more likely you are to hit.

Finally, if you are missing a lot then either the opponents AC is really high (in which case everyone is in the same boat) or you are just having a run of bad luck which can happen to everyone and it is just chance.

[iTreeby]

Maybe get some new dice? I've identified a few d20s in my collection that are not fair.

[Surtur08]

Again, many thanks. There are a lot of suggestions here that I like and will certainly go in one of those ways.

My string of bad luck is now legendary in my group. For the last two years (except a couple of months where I played a CC bard) I hit nothing. No kidding, they call me snake eyes. It is just much worse lately and we are in for a long campain and kinda stuck with my char.

Right now, I do have sharpshooter and a longbow for 2 attacks per round. I am just really (!!!!!) unlucky at hitting. I roll alright for initiative, saving throws, ability checks. It is uncanny seriously how bad it is going with attack rolls.

Again, great suggestion. I love the evocator suggestion with MM. I will definitely look at that for my next char. Right now though, even if I die and need a new char, I can't go that route as I now realise that our wizard use that reasoning a lot and don't want to duplicate. I will surely go with a different suggestion. I need to make my bard work now... I need to refocus him by not relying on my bow.

Last encounter tonight, I used heat metal and sleep a bit more. That worked alright. Any suggestion in reworking my Bard? I will send more details in minutes about my character.

[Surtur08]

Bard 6 - Bard of valor - Human Variant
Str 8 Dex 17 Con 13 Int 10 Wis 12 Cha 16
Longbow
Feat: Sharpshooter (Human Variant)
Bracers of Archery
Everfull Quiver
Standard array for stats.

Cantrips
Vicious Mockery (that I consider spamming now even though it does very little damage)
Message
Light
Prestidigitation

Lvl1
Healing Word
Detect Magic
Sleep
Faerie Fire
Heroism

Lvl2
Heat Metal
Invisibilty

Lvl3
Hypnotic Patterns
Dispel Magic

So many skils...

[Rukelnikov]

First off, if you do attack don't use SS, its great, but if you are missing every attack that +5 to hit will probably make a difference.

If you wanna stick to attacking (and your build is definitelly pointing to that), next level replace invisibility with Greater Invisibility. It will grant advantage to every attack, that should help with your bad luck. Besides that there's not much you can do next level.

Your build is pretty solid btw, I'd get rid of sleep too when you have the chance unless you wanna keep it for Out of Combat situations, like putting some commoners to sleep or something.

[Sigreid]

When I couldn't land a hit to save my life (or anyone else's) I created a sorcerer that selected buffs and spells that forced the target to roll. It worked pretty well.

[Malifice]

Buff Wizard (Diviner).

Turn your bad rolls into failed enemy saves via Portent.

Be a halfling (no more 1's!) and take Lucky at 4th level.

[LordNibbler]

Two levels of rogue gets you cunning action. You can use a bonus action to hide then you attack with advantage. That may be a steep investment unless you’re on your way to three levels of rogue which gets you Assassinate.

[Lunali]

If it's only when you roll, check your dice, then pick up a class that does save DCs instead of attack rolls, make someone else roll for you. If it doesn't matter who's the one rolling, buffs and healing are probably the best route, alternatively you could focus on skill roll based stuff and get rogue to 11. Another option would be to make good use of the help action to let other people roll more dice.

[stoutstien]

Buff Wizard (Diviner).

Turn your bad rolls into failed enemy saves via Portent.

Be a halfling (no more 1's!) and take Lucky at 4th level.
So much this. I had a halfling diviner who made no attack rolls until lv 8 and that was roll to slap a goblin with a literal red herring of the back of a hippo.(that campaign got strange.)

[Particle_Man]

I have bad luck too, especially with my “cyanide blue” gem dice. Got a natural one on remove traps followed by natural one on the save followed by rolling up a new character to replace the small pieces of meat and bone my old character became.

At least 5e has no fumble tables except as variant or house rules.

[Rukelnikov]

I have bad luck too, especially with my “cyanide blue” gem dice. Got a natural one on remove traps followed by natural one on the save followed by rolling up a new character to replace the small pieces of meat and bone my old character became.

At least 5e has no fumble tables except as variant or house rules.

My table has always use pretty hardcore fumbles since I started playing back in 2e.

Every 1 in a d20 is a fumble, in any kind of roll (we adjusted it with the Epic variant in 3e).

When you fumble, your turn ends, if you had 4 attacks and fumbled in the second, you dont get to do those 2 remaining attacks either.

Now DM will name 3 possible outcomes related to the action in which you fumbled, for instance if you attacked and fumbled:

*"You lose grasp of your weapon, it flies 1d6 squares in a random direction"
*"You provoke an attack of oppotunity"
*"You slip and are off-balance, enemies have advantage to hit you until your next turn"

Now you roll a d6, 1 or 2 means the first option happens ("You lose grasp of your weapon, it flies 1d6 squares in a random direction"), 3 or 4 mean second option, and so on.

The options I listed are some of the most generic we use, but in situations like having allies or other creatures in reach "your enemy dodges and you instead attack a random creature in range" (roll to hit again against randomly selected creature in range), or out of combat, fumble in climb, "you fall", "rope cuts in half", "disadvantage for next roll".

It tends to be very funny when it doesn't turn out deadly (the rest of the table will likely pitch in ideas to the dm).

[opaopajr]

Any, as long as you interact with the environment and support your allies. :smallsmile: Trust me, my luck is likely worse; I can't hit much of anything for multiple campaigns, any dice set, spanning multiple systems, now going on for decades. :smallwink: And yet I still play and can make a good showing in my RPGs because it's not about rolling well as much as teamwork, playing a role with passion, and preparation. :smallsmile:

Do your best! :smallamused:

[ad_hoc]

Just so everyone knows, magic only exists in D&D.

No one is inherently lucky or unlucky.

Everyone does, however, have very strong cognitive biases that trick us into seeing patterns that aren't really there. This is why gambling is so profitable.

[hymer]

You need to cleanse your dice. I don't know what you did, or what someone else did, but a cleansing ceremony is in order.

Air cleansing is easiest, albeit less effective. You put your dice in a bag, preferably of some natural fibre. You can put them in a pillow casing if you do not have an appropriate dice bag.
Then you hang them on your washline, and leave them there for as long as you can. Three days and three nights is the better option, but if there is strong winds, it works far faster.

Earth cleansing is more powerful, and has never failed me. But it takes more effort. You need to put them in a wooden box, and bury them, with at least a few inches of soil covering the box. Again, three days and three nights is best. If it rains, it works faster.

[nickl_2000]

You need to cleanse your dice. I don't know what you did, or what someone else did, but a cleansing ceremony is in order.

Air cleansing is easiest, albeit less effective. You put your dice in a bag, preferably of some natural fibre. You can put them in a pillow casing if you do not have an appropriate dice bag.
Then you hang them on your washline, and leave them there for as long as you can. Three days and three nights is the better option, but if there is strong winds, it works far faster.

Earth cleansing is more powerful, and has never failed me. But it takes more effort. You need to put them in a wooden box, and bury them, with at least a few inches of soil covering the box. Again, three days and three nights is best. If it rains, it works faster.

Avoid the fire cleansing method. I tried that once with a bad set of dice, by the end of day 3 all I had left was a pile of ashen, bluish goo. On the plus side though, they never rolled poorly again.

[Mercurias]

I am down in the dumps. I can't hit on attack roll to save my life for SEVERAL game sessions now. Regardless of what I play now, what would be the best character I can play, where I will roll the less amount of dice possible?

Thanks in advance...

I'm living that right now with my Light Cleric. I've been following the directions others have given about using buff spells like Bless and Faerie Fire to be more useful in combat, and it's worked really well overall.

Honestly, my dream character would be a blasty Wild Magic halfling Sorc where I can do a lot of rerolls and spend loads of time playing russian roulette with the Wild Magic Effect table. If I'm going to have nonstop bad rolls, then I at least want them to be INTERESTING bad rolls.

[Grod_The_Giant]

My string of bad luck is now legendary in my group. For the last two years (except a couple of months where I played a CC bard) I hit nothing. No kidding, they call me snake eyes. It is just much worse lately and we are in for a long campain and kinda stuck with my char.
If it's been going on for two years, that's stretching probability. As iTreeby said, you might just have bad dice-- there might be an air bubble of something that's throwing off the weight. You could try the salt water test (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI3N4Qg-JZM).

[CorporateSlave]

I'd get rid of sleep too when you have the chance unless you wanna keep it for Out of Combat situations, like putting some commoners to sleep or something.

Eeesh, everybody hates Sleep! I still use it in combat at level 9 to great effect, just need to time it until the enemy has gotten the crud beat out of them, then hit them with a guaranteed (well, almost) takedown. No to hit roll needed, and your "attack" does 5d8 "damage."

Granted, its still dice, but its a handful of d8's, and not just a single d20 roll to pooch, enemy doesn't even get a save. Sure, it doesn't work on everything (elves, undead), but it works often enough for me to want to keep it as a level 1 spell!

Of course the optimizers will hate on this, but I find it more entertaining than another Mega-Kil Spell Of Doom.

I gotta tell you I feel you on the cursed dice rolling, only mine are saving throws. For some reason just the debilitating ones. I can pass a DEX save to avoid damage fine. But I can spend all combat rolling +5 to WIS every turn and cower in fear in a corner the whole time.

[jaappleton]

Thanks guys. I m actually a archer bard right now. Lvl 6. But we have a veteran group that has a house rules against beibg very good before 8. Can't have a stat at 18 or better before eight. So all the classes that seem powerhouse don't work.

I feel like I need a speelcaster that would have spells that need saving throws a lot.

I think I might actually have something for you. Two suggestions, actually.

If you can't hit anything, what if you instead made sure that your allies hit EVERYTHING?

The Faerie Fire spell is amazing for this. Its available to Druids, Bards and Light Domain Clerics. Light Domain Clerics also get Fireball, Burning Hands, Wall of Fire... Stuff that doesn't need attack rolls. So Light Domain Cleric is my first suggestion.

My next suggestion is something relatively new, and could be exactly what you need. The Order Domain Cleric. It came out in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Its something of an Enchantment-based Cleric Domain. Spells like Bless, Hold Person, and charm-heavy spells. It also gets Slow, which is super useful. Now, why is this great for you? Because when you cast an Enchantment spell, an ally can use their reaction to attack. So if you lead off with Bless, someone can attack. And at lv6, if you cast an Enchantment spell, you can cast it as a bonus action. By casting something like Bless as a bonus action, you free up your action economy to do more.

[J-H]

Make a Lightfoot Halfling and re-roll all those 1s.

[Surtur08]

First off, if you do attack don't use SS, its great, but if you are missing every attack that +5 to hit will probably make a difference.

If you wanna stick to attacking (and your build is definitelly pointing to that), next level replace invisibility with Greater Invisibility. It will grant advantage to every attack, that should help with your bad luck. Besides that there's not much you can do next level.

Your build is pretty solid btw, I'd get rid of sleep too when you have the chance unless you wanna keep it for Out of Combat situations, like putting some commoners to sleep or something.

Thanks Rukelnikov. I'm glad you like my build. I will take greater invisibilty next level. I was thinking about multiclassing rogue ... but ... not sure yet.

Sleep is my go to when I keep missing and need to get a couple of minions out of the way. No rolls ;). But at this level it won't work well really soon so yes, I'll have to change it.

[Surtur08]

I think I might actually have something for you. Two suggestions, actually.

If you can't hit anything, what if you instead made sure that your allies hit EVERYTHING?

The Faerie Fire spell is amazing for this. Its available to Druids, Bards and Light Domain Clerics. Light Domain Clerics also get Fireball, Burning Hands, Wall of Fire... Stuff that doesn't need attack rolls. So Light Domain Cleric is my first suggestion.

My next suggestion is something relatively new, and could be exactly what you need. The Order Domain Cleric. It came out in Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. Its something of an Enchantment-based Cleric Domain. Spells like Bless, Hold Person, and charm-heavy spells. It also gets Slow, which is super useful. Now, why is this great for you? Because when you cast an Enchantment spell, an ally can use their reaction to attack. So if you lead off with Bless, someone can attack. And at lv6, if you cast an Enchantment spell, you can cast it as a bonus action. By casting something like Bless as a bonus action, you free up your action economy to do more.

Very interesting as well !

[Surtur08]

Make a Lightfoot Halfling and re-roll all those 1s.

We have one already as a wizard who are doing pretty much everyone s suggestion. I don t want to duplicate him but I ll try it next time around for sure.

[Surtur08]

Thanks all !

I feel like I wanna play again XD

[Man_Over_Game]

I would definitely not combine Sharpshooter with Rogue. The -5/+10 benefit works best with a low damage attack, and Rogue increases your overall damage per attack. Unless you have a method to dramatically increase your accuracy, you'll be hurting yourself lowering your accuracy than just going with a nearly guaranteed sneak attack.

Don't forget that a single level into Fighter will grant you +2 to your accuracy with your bow.

There may also be a chance that your DM is having creatures with higher-than-average AC. If that's the case, consider nullifying that with spells like Heat Metal, Silence or Hypnotic Pattern.

[Surtur08]

Very interesting... I might just take that level into fighter for that +2. I also want that greater invisibility... so I might know what to do for the next 2 lvl.

For the spells I am waiting to use HM properly as we have had fights with bandits and bugbears using leather mostly. I have to review HypPattern to use it well too.

I think lvl 7, I will be dipping into fighter since that +2 will be on every attack roll. Then back to bard probably to get G.Invisibility since its great but with limited uses.

Thanks again

[Shuruke]

Very interesting... I might just take that level into fighter for that +2. I also want that greater invisibility... so I might know what to do for the next 2 lvl.

For the spells I am waiting to use HM properly as we have had fights with bandits and bugbears using leather mostly. I have to review HypPattern to use it well too.

I think lvl 7, I will be dipping into fighter since that +2 will be on every attack roll. Then back to bard probably to get G.Invisibility since its great but with limited uses.

Thanks again

If you go 3 fighter u can get battlemaster for the accuracy maneuver
That with archery style will give 1d8+2 to hit a few times a rest
Level 2 fighter will give action surge which is nice for most builds.

You could prob get away with 4 fighter for martial adept


Grabbing things like
Commanding strike
Rally
Distracting strike

Etc

[Citan]

I am down in the dumps. I can't hit on attack roll to save my life for SEVERAL game sessions now. Regardless of what I play now, what would be the best character I can play, where I will roll the less amount of dice possible?

Thanks in advance...
Hey ;)

Seen this thread several days ago forgot to answer it. ^^

You know it's all just a bias of perception because of course luck doesn't exist.

Seriously, I feel you mate, I also often have periods of bad rolls. XD

Two ways to go around it.

1. Put everything on your side.
2. Forget about rolling.

2. Is not necessarily the easiest, but it can work: Shepherd Druid is the best, followed by Divine Soul Sorcerer for focused builds and some Wizards or Glamour Bard.
Basically, pick only spells that "just work" when applicable (like Heat Metal or Plant Growth), spells that conjure creatures or buffs for allies.

In that regard, few of the best are Shepherd Druid (Wild Shape usefulness, Aura to boost and some of the best spells), Glamour Bard (especially for 4/5-man parties) and Divine Soul Sorcerer (very few spell known but Subtle, Twin and Extend are great).

1. Is best made by creating a specific multiclass.
Precisely you have two manners in which to ensure you will hit.
- stacking rolls.
- lowering the ceiling to go over.

Stacking rolls means advantage, possibly with Elven Accuracy or racial ability stacked onto it.
Advantage is much easier gained on melee attacks (Expertise on Athletics), but there a few select ways to do the same on ranged attack: basically Darkness+Devil's Sight or Greater Invisibility (or hiding every turn with Expertise).

Lowering ceiling means stacking features that give flat bonuses.
For melee attacks, that's limited: basically buffs like Magic Weapon or Elemental Weapon, or Bless.
For ranged attacks, it's overall the same, with Archery Fighting Style in addition.
Besides that, everything comes from class/archetype features: Hexblade (improved crit range), Devotion Paladin (Sacred Weapon), Kensei Monk (Ki to improve).

So.
My suggestion would be:
- Devotion Paladin 3: Sacred Weapon
- Battlemaster Fighter 3: Precision Manoeuver, more importantly Action Surge to activate Sacred Weapon while still getting a chance to damage.
- Hexblade Warlock 3: Shield, Shadow Blade, Devil's Sight if you'd like to play with Darkness, Booming Blade for melee, Improved Pact Weapon to use longbow if you want.
- Rogue 1-2 if you'd like instead to go Expertise in Athletics (melee) or Stealth (ranged).
Then whatever you want, as long as you bump Charisma.

Start Fighter 1 (Constitution proficiency) -> Warlock 1 (Hexblade with Booming Blade) -> Devotion Paladin 3 (weapon boost) -> Fighter 2 (Action Surge to make it easier to use Sacred Weapon) -> whatever else as long as you bump Charisma to 18 by char level 9.

---> You'll get early +4 (Charisma thanks to Hexblade) +4 (Paladin's Devotion) +4 (proficiency at level 8) +2 (if you go ranged with Archery) +1 (once you get Improved Weapon).
Meaning at level 9 you have a base bonus of 15 for the toughest fight.
Without needing Elven Accuracy, with simple advantage, you will *just hit* whatever comes your way until AC 20.
If you pick Elven Accuracy and enable advantage, you will hit whatever happens unless AC 22 or higher.
(Note I'm doing rough assessments from memory because little time right now, but I should be close enough to truth).

[Samayu]

Or illusionist wizard.

[Kadesh]

War Cleric with a 2-3 level Paladin of Conquestdip. You get the ability to hit with your numerous Short Rest Channel divinities, and deal bonus damage when you need to, while being able to empower your damage to ridiculous levels when you do.

Meanwhile you still use Cleric and Paladin buff spells to assist the party.