are these two players broken or working as intended?

[Dreadfull]

Heya guys,

I recently joined a 5e game as a player. I used to DM 3.5 a lot and my biggest issue is leaving that mindset behind. Now im trying to do this really hard but i ran into two issues i have with two other PC's in the party.
Side note: our DM is new and is running his first campaign, His experience is mostly in being a 3,5 and 5e player.

We started and currently are at lvl 8. We got one uncommon magic item to choose. and about 600 GP each to spend, requiring the DM's permission to spend it on magic items on character creation. This is all great.
Now in my party two players are doing things that bother me a lot. So much so that its taking the fun out of it for me.

We have a Goliath forge cleric7/Fighter 1 that claims he has a base AC of 27.
If i build one i can get a base AC of 21 with plate, a shield and the defend style. With spells known i can raise it by another 2 using shield of faith. that would make a 23 at level 8, which is extremely high. Great. But did he do something wrong or am i missing something that he claims his base is 27? i mean no one cast it on him but even with the shield spell on top of this AC im still not getting higher than 25.

The other player has an Aarakocra barb/fighter in an unkown combination. He took barbarian for the large build and movement speed totems. And basically focused his character on movement speed and STR. I even buffed him with a haste at the start of combat as he asked for that. Now this guy proceeds to grapple a hill giant, lift it his double movement speed up (cause haste) and drop it. Sounds great but he cant fly with medium or heavy armor. So why can he fly lifting a giant? i tried all the RAW on this but it seems extremely lacking not straight up making it impossible, but not straight up saying you are supposed to do this either. Im very confused but i still think this is OP and i'm pretty sure this isn't RAI as it seems extremely broken (and the fact Tieflings and Aarakocra can't fly with medium or heavy armor) and this kinda took the fun out of playing the last encounter for me and most of the rest of the party.

Now i talked about it with the DM. He said he's going to look in to it. I also told him I'm all for the rule of cool. But the cleric AC makes it so that enemy's with a +7 to hit can only crit him (5% hit chance) but will hit the rest of the party about 60-85% of the time, depending on which player gets attacked. The Aarakocra dropping enemies like this took the chances away for any of the other party members to do anything. For instance both our DPS casters together with a lvl 4 and 3 spell slot did only half the damage the Aarakocra dropping it did. as his double movement speed just gave him 14D6 damage combined with a new grapple and a bonus attack
So yeah, what would you guys do/rule?

I'm seriously thinking of just retiring my char, rolling a mystic (either pure or multi class with warlock or monk for added shenanigans) or some other OP Build and breaking the game completely to show that broken characters spoil the fun for the rest of the party... But I'm pretty sure that would just end up making matters worse. So here I am.

[Friv]

We have a Goliath forge cleric7/Fighter 1 that claims he has a base AC of 27.
If i build one i can get a base AC of 21 with plate, a shield and the defend style. With spells known i can raise it by another 2 using shield of faith. that would make a 23 at level 8, which is extremely high. Great. But did he do something wrong or am i missing something that he claims his base is 27? i mean no one cast it on him but even with the shield spell on top of this AC im still not getting higher than 25.

Forge Domain and magic armor is probably what you're looking for.

A Defense-style fighter with +1 plate and a shield has a base AC of 22. Forge Domain gives you +1 AC in heavy armor, and lets you empower one piece of armor or weapon a day to give it +1 attack or AC, so if that goes on the shield they're at 24. Shield of Faith takes him to AC 26 as a bonus action, and while it only lasts 10 minutes that's enough to have it in the average fight. My guess is he also spent his gold on an uncommon magic item, if that's allowed? Possibly a +1 Ring of Protection.

It's a pretty silly build, but it's dedicating an awful lot to "not getting hit straight-on" so I don't know if it's actually overpowered. Highly-specialized, yeah, but that is a lot of class powers dedicated to defense over attack.

The flier sounds more shenanigans. My assumption is that the player convinced the GM that a high enough Strength overcomes the flight penalties, and is playing it to the hilt. But that trick only works on certain types of bosses; it's much less effective against crowds, fliers, and the like. Grappling also halves your speed, so I'm not sure how high they could actually get, even with haste up.


I'm seriously thinking of just retiring my char, rolling a mystic (either pure or multi class with warlock or monk for added shenanigans) or some other OP Build and breaking the game completely to show that broken characters spoil the fun for the rest of the party... But I'm pretty sure that would just end up making matters worse. So here I am.

This is a good instinct. If you're worried that you aren't able to stand up with those two, though, it seems reasonable to use their characters as a benchmark, and build your character around one equally silly trick that would synergize well with their silly tricks. If everyone's high-optimization, everyone is having fun.

[Darc_Vader]

Not sure about the AC, but the grappling shouldn’t work as far as I know.



The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach.


A Hill Giant is Huge. Assuming you mean Bear Totem Aspect of the Beast when you say Large Build, that only affects carrying capacity, so it wouldn’t apply to Grappling by RAW. A medium creature shouldn’t be able to grapple a Hill Giant at all, let alone fly with it.

[Vorpalchicken]

With one uncommon item and the forge cleric features, I can see a 24 base AC. (Lv 6 forge cleric gets +1 AC in heavy armour, Lv 1 feature temporarily enchants Armour +1 - Add in a cloak of protection)
He may be counting Shield of Faith and possibly the cheese move of casting Warding Bond with himself as the target . (Making himself both the donor and the recipient)
Oh perhaps he used Ceremony to marry a party member for a week long AC bonus as long as he stays within 30 feet of his spouse.

[diplomancer]

Heya guys,

I recently joined a 5e game as a player. I used to DM 3.5 a lot and my biggest issue is leaving that mindset behind. Now im trying to do this really hard but i ran into two issues i have with two other PC's in the party.
Side note: our DM is new and is running his first campaign, His experience is mostly in being a 3,5 and 5e player.

We started and currently are at lvl 8. We got one uncommon magic item to choose. and about 600 GP each to spend, requiring the DM's permission to spend it on magic items on character creation. This is all great.
Now in my party two players are doing things that bother me a lot. So much so that its taking the fun out of it for me.

We have a Goliath forge cleric7/Fighter 1 that claims he has a base AC of 27.
If i build one i can get a base AC of 21 with plate, a shield and the defend style. With spells known i can raise it by another 2 using shield of faith. that would make a 23 at level 8, which is extremely high. Great. But did he do something wrong or am i missing something that he claims his base is 27? i mean no one cast it on him but even with the shield spell on top of this AC im still not getting higher than 25.

The other player has an Aarakocra barb/fighter in an unkown combination. He took barbarian for the large build and movement speed totems. And basically focused his character on movement speed and STR. I even buffed him with a haste at the start of combat as he asked for that. Now this guy proceeds to grapple a hill giant, lift it his double movement speed up (cause haste) and drop it. Sounds great but he cant fly with medium or heavy armor. So why can he fly lifting a giant? i tried all the RAW on this but it seems extremely lacking not straight up making it impossible, but not straight up saying you are supposed to do this either. Im very confused but i still think this is OP and i'm pretty sure this isn't RAI as it seems extremely broken (and the fact Tieflings and Aarakocra can't fly with medium or heavy armor) and this kinda took the fun out of playing the last encounter for me and most of the rest of the party.

Now i talked about it with the DM. He said he's going to look in to it. I also told him I'm all for the rule of cool. But the cleric AC makes it so that enemy's with a +7 to hit can only crit him (5% hit chance) but will hit the rest of the party about 60-85% of the time, depending on which player gets attacked. The Aarakocra dropping enemies like this took the chances away for any of the other party members to do anything. For instance both our DPS casters together with a lvl 4 and 3 spell slot did only half the damage the Aarakocra dropping it did. as his double movement speed just gave him 14D6 damage combined with a new grapple and a bonus attack
So yeah, what would you guys do/rule?

I'm seriously thinking of just retiring my char, rolling a mystic (either pure or multi class with warlock or monk for added shenanigans) or some other OP Build and breaking the game completely to show that broken characters spoil the fun for the rest of the party... But I'm pretty sure that would just end up making matters worse. So here I am.

Maybe they are using the UA forge cleric, who had shield as a domain spell.

About the Barb, a couple of points:
1- you cannot grapple a creature 2 sizes higher than you. The bearbarian ability that says "you count as one size larger for carrying capacity" does not apply to grapples.
2-this is more up to the DM, but a fair case can be made that dragging a grappled opponent and flying up with a grappled opponent are two very different things. In the first case, regular grappling rules apply, in the second case encumbrance rules apply (and thus the double capacity of the Bearbarian does apply to the encumbrance, but still not close enough to carry a giant, or even most large creatures.

[LudicSavant]

Forge Cleric can pretty easily get an AC of 27 by that level, but not as base AC with just one Uncommon item. Especially since he shouldn't even be able to afford plate armor with 600 gp.

[Dreadfull]

Thanks for the quick replies.
I'm going reply more detailed later, but just a quick clarification.
The cleric says his base AC (so class feats and equipment) is 27. So that's without shield of faith, shield spell, or other temp bonuses. So in combat it's even more.


...Forge Domain gives you +1 AC in heavy armor, and lets you empower one piece of armor or weapon a day to give it +1 attack or AC, so if that goes on the shield they're at 24.....

Also thanks for reminding me of the +1 bonus to AC if he buffs his shield.
That would make the total 27 but only when buffed. Maybe 28 if he did get a ring of protection, which he can't because it's rare and we're not allowed stuff above uncommon yet. But that's for the DM to look into.

This is a good instinct. If you're worried that you aren't able to stand up with those two, though, it seems reasonable to use their characters as a benchmark, and build your character around one equally silly trick that would synergize well with their silly tricks. If everyone's high-optimization, everyone is having fun.
So it might not be the worst idea?

[LudicSavant]

The cleric says his base AC (so class feats and equipment) is 27. So that's without shield of faith, shield, or other temp bonusses. So in combat it's even more.

Then ask him how he's doing that.

[MoiMagnus]

The RAW of everything corresponding moving around big creature is lacking in general, and the DM is expected to some reasonable rules on what you can push and lift. But in general, fly range from useless to OP depending on your DM and the campaign. (I mean, to fly, you need to not be indoor otherwise you just don't have the space to do so...)

AC 27 feels like a lot, and is OP is the DM play "dumb" (like actually attacking the cleric against AC, rather than ignoring him to attack other peoples, while the casters actually try to kill him with save spells). "Tanking" as "making sure the enemy target you" is pretty much impossible in 5e.

And for "how does he got it", Plate Armor 18 + Magic (+1) Shield 3 + Forge Cleric 2 + Fighter Fighting Style 1 + Spell "shield of faith" 2 = 26. Note that he cannot take a magical armour since it cost 5000 so I'm missing a +1 somewhere.

Note that there is a small additional problem: the non-magical plate armour cost 1500, i.e 3 uncommon magical item. So not really affordable if you only got 600, which reduces the AC by 1.

Final remark: The characters are not necessarily OP, but the players clearly try to break the system here, which is very bad against a beginner DM, since they will succeed (though can be quite fun with an experienced DM). A lot of new DMs actually ban multiclassing and everything outside of the core book (which include the flying race and the forge domain), since it makes things far easier to handle, especially "against" players that try to break the system.

[Guy Lombard-O]

Maybe 28 if he did get a ring of protection, which he can't because it's rare and we're not allowed stuff above uncommon yet. But that's for the DM to look into.

It might be a +1 Cloak of Protection. That's only uncommon.

[Vorpalchicken]

Note that there is a small additional problem: the non-magical plate armour cost 1500, i.e 3 uncommon magical item. So not really affordable if you only got 600, which reduces the AC by 1.

In many campaigns 1500 gold is easily attainable by eighth level and magic items are largely not available for purchase.

[RickAllison]

In terms of the plate armor, it may be that the cleric chose an uncommon one with plate so he could skip the actual cost since the item is free. Still, something is janky.

This very much strikes me as a couple erstwhile minmaxers who don’t realize their “maxes” don’t actually work.

[DrLoveMonkey]

I think your birdman friend may be violating both the letter and spirit of the rules, but the cleric is likely just being kind of exploity. If he’s using two of his attunement slots and his concentration slot to get it then it might be working as intended. It’s not like it makes him immune to spells or other effects anyway, although for a new DM that can really suck, and suck equally for the less optimized PCs.

I mean, you could just introduce this new enemy who’s a lich, and his favourite mount is the Tarrasque, and that solves the OP problem, but if that’s not the story the DM was expecting to tell, and if the other players aren’t likewise super minmaxed there’s going to be some unhappy people. In my experience with my games the highest AC tends to be around 20-21 and that’s still solid, it works well with the system. Either way I don’t think your game is exactly working as intended. I would suggest not swapping to a super OP lore wizard or mystic or whatever unless the DM is also okay with this level of play, otherwise that’s just more hell you’re putting him through. Then again it’s hard to tell those kinds of players to back off a bit, usually they’ll just retire a character and show up with some new crazy thing.

[Keravath]

Forge cleric/fighter

Plate armor 18 (how did they get this with a 600gp budget? Plate is 1500gp)
Shield 2
Defensive 1

21 AC

Forge cleric
Magical Armor 1 (blessing of the forge - +1 can only be applied to weapon or armor, not shields "you can touch one non-magical object that is a suit of armor")
Soul of the Forge 1 (gains 1AC in heavy armor at 6th level)

23 AC

Any additional AC comes from magic items or spells.
Options:
Item: Cloak of Protection 1 (uncommon)
Spell: Shield of Faith 2 (concentration, action to cast)

26 AC

So with a spell and an uncommon magic item 26 is possible but it requires using an action to cast the Shield of Faith spell and concentration to keep it going.

P.S. A cleric is much better off concentrating on Spirit Guardians or Bless to be honest than Shield of Faith

[LudicSavant]

Forge cleric/fighter

Plate armor 18 (how did they get this with a 600gp budget? Plate is 1500gp)
Shield 2
Defensive 1

21 AC

Forge cleric
Magical Armor 1 (blessing of the forge - +1 can only be applied to weapon or armor, not shields "you can touch one non-magical object that is a suit of armor")
Soul of the Forge 1 (gains 1AC in heavy armor at 6th level)

23 AC

Any additional AC comes from magic items or spells.
Options:
Item: Cloak of Protection 1 (uncommon)
Spell: Shield of Faith 2 (concentration, action to cast)

26 AC

None of this is possible with the stipulations the OP gave (600gp so no plate, base AC so no Shield of Faith or Blessing of the Forge, etc).

[RickAllison]

None of this is possible with the stipulations the OP gave (600gp so no plate, base AC so no Shield of Faith or Blessing of the Forge, etc).

I would assume that they used the free uncommon magic item on adamantine plate mail or something. Which opens up further debate because if you can’t use Blessing of the Forge on the shield then they can’t use it for their AC.

[LordCdrMilitant]

I don't think the AC guy sounds egregious; at the very least I know it's possible to get a temporary AC even higher than that without trying too hard, though I don't know his exact build, so he still might not be doing something right.

Also, having a high AC isn't particularly OP at all, since there's a lot of ways to just ignore it, and you have to go really high for AC to matter at all. 18-20 AC from chain or plate + shield is basically not worth ****e at level 8.



The flight guy is definitely overlooking something though, since IIRC you can't grapple things bigger than you.

As for the cost of plate, I wouldn't be surprised if asking the GM for it as your uncommon item or something worked. As a GM, I would give out plate armor to martial characters who asked and were level 8. Otherwise DEX-based characters are actually beating the AC of heavy armor characters for just 45GP, which IMO is a problem. I'd have no problem giving plate and a uncommon magic item to a level 8 character.

[Chaos Jackal]

As others have said, the cleric is shady. There are ways to get a lot of AC in 5e, but "base 27" at lv8 as a cleric/fighter? Doesn't add up.

Regarding the aarakocra drag and drop, that's a strategy I've seen mentioned quite often, and by RAW it should typically work. A character with high STR has a lot of lifting capacity, so even blending the encumbrance rules and grappling rules together they shouldn't have a problem lifting someone their size. Plus, if he's a Totem Warrior with the lv6 bear feature, his already huge carrying capacity is doubled. So against most medium and large opponents, this should work without issue.

However, regardless of how one chooses to interpret these rules, in the presented case the whole thing doesn't work because of very specific limitations that aren't subject to any RAW or RAI questions. You can't grapple someone who is two sizes larger than you, and even if you could you don't move your full speed (which, in this case, would be 120ft), but only half. Oh, and if his level 3 totem is the elk movement speed buff, that specifically says it adds to walking speed, not to flying. So he only gets the 10ft from barbarian 5.

He can do that trick to humanoids. Not to giants.

[stewstew5]

The Aarakocra shouldn't be able to grapple the giant, if that is the problem, it is size huge and he is only medium, and powerful build only calculates you one size class larger for carrying capacity and nothing else. But if the giant was being carried, well,,,

The armor restriction isn't about weight, its about there being no way to make armor that both provides a solid defense and accommodates the aarakocra's wings. Meanwhile, the lowest weight i could find for a size huge creature (using generic guides from previous editions) was roughly 2 tonnes, or 2, 205 pounds. Now, the most a character can drag, lift or pull is 30 times their strength score, though if its over 25 times their strength score their base move speed is reduced to 5'. Since the aarakocra has powerful build and im assuming a strength of 20, the most he could lift would be 20 x 30 x 2, or 1,200 lbs, so he might be able to if this particular giant were very light. As for how far he could fly it,,,

This aarakocra can fly up to 5' on his turn while carrying this skinny, brittle-boned giant. Since you are eighth level, he took bear for his level 6 totem and elk only grants a walking speed at level three I'm going to assume he took eagle, which allows him to dash as a bonus action, doubling his move speed. Haste also doubles his move speed, bringing him up to 20', and he has an additional action to dash again to double it one more time (double dashing does stack), bringing him to 40' straight up, or only 4d6 of bludgeoning damage on the drop

[stoutstien]

Heya guys,

I recently joined a 5e game as a player. I used to DM 3.5 a lot and my biggest issue is leaving that mindset behind. Now im trying to do this really hard but i ran into two issues i have with two other PC's in the party.
Side note: our DM is new and is running his first campaign, His experience is mostly in being a 3,5 and 5e player.

We started and currently are at lvl 8. We got one uncommon magic item to choose. and about 600 GP each to spend, requiring the DM's permission to spend it on magic items on character creation. This is all great.
Now in my party two players are doing things that bother me a lot. So much so that its taking the fun out of it for me.

We have a Goliath forge cleric7/Fighter 1 that claims he has a base AC of 27.
If i build one i can get a base AC of 21 with plate, a shield and the defend style. With spells known i can raise it by another 2 using shield of faith. that would make a 23 at level 8, which is extremely high. Great. But did he do something wrong or am i missing something that he claims his base is 27? i mean no one cast it on him but even with the shield spell on top of this AC im still not getting higher than 25.

The other player has an Aarakocra barb/fighter in an unkown combination. He took barbarian for the large build and movement speed totems. And basically focused his character on movement speed and STR. I even buffed him with a haste at the start of combat as he asked for that. Now this guy proceeds to grapple a hill giant, lift it his double movement speed up (cause haste) and drop it. Sounds great but he cant fly with medium or heavy armor. So why can he fly lifting a giant? i tried all the RAW on this but it seems extremely lacking not straight up making it impossible, but not straight up saying you are supposed to do this either. Im very confused but i still think this is OP and i'm pretty sure this isn't RAI as it seems extremely broken (and the fact Tieflings and Aarakocra can't fly with medium or heavy armor) and this kinda took the fun out of playing the last encounter for me and most of the rest of the party.

Now i talked about it with the DM. He said he's going to look in to it. I also told him I'm all for the rule of cool. But the cleric AC makes it so that enemy's with a +7 to hit can only crit him (5% hit chance) but will hit the rest of the party about 60-85% of the time, depending on which player gets attacked. The Aarakocra dropping enemies like this took the chances away for any of the other party members to do anything. For instance both our DPS casters together with a lvl 4 and 3 spell slot did only half the damage the Aarakocra dropping it did. as his double movement speed just gave him 14D6 damage combined with a new grapple and a bonus attack
So yeah, what would you guys do/rule?

I'm seriously thinking of just retiring my char, rolling a mystic (either pure or multi class with warlock or monk for added shenanigans) or some other OP Build and breaking the game completely to show that broken characters spoil the fun for the rest of the party... But I'm pretty sure that would just end up making matters worse. So here I am.

Both of these players need to to be addressed out of game because the issue is really an out of game problem.
They are playing a different game than the rest of the table. Not to mention they are probably intentionally breaking rules for some reason or don't have enough system Mastery to do what they are attempting.

I would suggest the DM use pregen characters for his first campaign and ditch the free magical item pick. The game math isn't set up for it and the rarity rating are all over the place.

5e isn't as new DM friendly as it first seems so the rest of the table shouldn't be making it harder by generally being wee fannies.

[Dreadfull]

, it seems reasonable to use their characters as a benchmark, and build your character around one equally silly trick that would synergize well with their silly tricks. If everyone's high-optimization, everyone is having fun.
This as a former DM, makes me worry about the two others that will be left behind. They just made very good characters by level that aren't broken just a little more well rounded.


A Hill Giant is Huge. Assuming you mean Bear Totem Aspect of the Beast when you say Large Build, that only affects carrying capacity, so it wouldn’t apply to Grappling by RAW. A medium creature shouldn’t be able to grapple a Hill Giant at all, let alone fly with it.
Yeah must be, it's the only one I can find with that effect. Couldn't remember from the top of my head when i made the post. I wasn't even thinking about it only affecting carry capacity. Must admit i just assumed this was correct (and I think I might have done this wrong with my own old grappler character once).

So this would make it so that an enlarge spell could make him grapple the giant but not fly with it? It's still not clear except for that what happened is wrong.


With one uncommon item and the forge cleric features, I can see a 24 base AC. (Lv 6 forge cleric gets +1 AC in heavy armour, Lv 1 feature temporarily enchants Armour +1 - Add in a cloak of protection)
He may be counting Shield of Faith and possibly the cheese move of casting Warding Bond with himself as the target . (Making himself both the donor and the recipient)
Oh perhaps he used Ceremony to marry a party member for a week long AC bonus as long as he stays within 30 feet of his spouse.
I love the marriage suggestion, ingenious.

yeah people keep bringing up +1 items and heavy plate. Not happening for our starting equipment. just to stop all of that. Like vorpal chicken said, cloack of protection could happen but that's it.


Maybe they are using the UA forge cleric, who had shield as a domain spell.

2-this is more up to the DM, but a fair case can be made that dragging a grappled opponent and flying up with a grappled opponent are two very different things. In the first case, regular grappling rules apply, in the second case encumbrance rules apply (and thus the double capacity of the Bearbarian does apply to the encumbrance, but still not close enough to carry a giant, or even most large creatures.

Might be the UA variant yeah i guess, that's more temp AC. So he could still get silly high during combat. Maybe check how many of those require concentration but i don't see any other limitation to those as long as done in the right order.


I think your birdman friend may be violating both the letter and spirit of the rules, but the cleric is likely just being kind of exploity. If he’s using two of his attunement slots and his concentration slot to get it then it might be working as intended. It’s not like it makes him immune to spells or other effects anyway, although for a new DM that can really suck, and suck equally for the less optimized PCs.

I mean, you could just introduce this new enemy who’s a lich, and his favourite mount is the Tarrasque, and that solves the OP problem, but if that’s not the story the DM was expecting to tell, and if the other players aren’t likewise super minmaxed there’s going to be some unhappy people. In my experience with my games the highest AC tends to be around 20-21 and that’s still solid, it works well with the system. Either way I don’t think your game is exactly working as intended. I would suggest not swapping to a super OP lore wizard or mystic or whatever unless the DM is also okay with this level of play, otherwise that’s just more hell you’re putting him through. Then again it’s hard to tell those kinds of players to back off a bit, usually they’ll just retire a character and show up with some new crazy thing.

Crazy things are welcomed by our DM, as long as they are legit and justifiable.
The consequences of what you suggest for the rest of the campaign and for what would happen if i would also build something broken is exactly what stops me from already having done so.


I don't think the AC guy sounds egregious; at the very least I know it's possible to get a temporary AC even higher than that without trying too hard, though I don't know his exact build, so he still might not be doing something right.

Also, having a high AC isn't particularly OP at all, since there's a lot of ways to just ignore it, and you have to go really high for AC to matter at all. 18-20 AC from chain or plate + shield is basically not worth ****e at level 8.

The flight guy is definitely overlooking something though, since IIRC you can't grapple things bigger than you.

As for the cost of plate, I wouldn't be surprised if asking the GM for it as your uncommon item or something worked. As a GM, I would give out plate armor to martial characters who asked and were level 8. Otherwise DEX-based characters are actually beating the AC of heavy armor characters for just 45GP, which IMO is a problem. I'd have no problem giving plate and a uncommon magic item to a level 8 character.

you cannot grapple something two or more sizes larger than you. but close enough. So you can but not this much bigger.
I can see our GM doing that without thinking it would break balance, but that plate to that AC is like a +1 sword for a fighter in this build. Also, wouldn't fit the gear picking rules the rest of us had though. Well his word goes at the end of the day. Gotta ask him.
I don't think either of these players are doing this entirely on purpose. They just don't seem to be very good at minmaxing yet is my impression. Also i suspect some Multiclassing mistakes with ASI's might have been made on at least one of them. I'm gathering a lot of "these guys did this and are bad people because of it"in this thread but i think that might only slightly be the case but not mostly, definitely not entirely.

As to all the rules suggestions on grapling i don't think a lot of you are using the rules the same as the next guy but i got some solid pointers form it all.

I think im gonna suggest my DM that grappling a creature and moving to flying is fine. But Lifting, dragging and pushing something is done on the ground. So he can still land and be amazingly strong with body strength. Multiply his lift, drag and push weights when standing. But what is he standing on in the air to lift all this weight from? So yeah that would be carrying, makes sense since he can fly with up to that max weight anyway. It's his wing's capacity.
Moving with carry capacity has great rules. Except nothing about carrying an unwilling target.
So require the carried creature to be grappled or restrained. So I'm going to suggest to halve movement speed for grappling and limiting the rest by carry capacity on top of the already existing size limit. Then calculate with carry cap penalties as normal when he goes over the capacity and adding that on top of his halved grappling speed when needed. Seems balanced preventing the ridiculous 10+d6 in 1 turn situations that break encounters but still having his build viable and using all the actions he wanted. He can still do it at double the regular D6's at least once in between rests. Also prevents the "I'm flying with a skinny giant cause i can "lift" this much" phrasing as lifting requires you to push off something solid now.
This also keeps him strong in any solid ground type situations as he can then drag and lift to his hearts desire.

Thanks everyone so far.


any suggestions? Even on how to phrase that neat and simple are welcome. Or would that require another topic?

[Nhorianscum]

Regardless of what we may feel is the RAW the DM has approved these shenasties so they're legit at this table.

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RAW neither of these builds seems legal as you've written.

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That said at level 8 we should be pushing or peeking over 100ish on hard nova rounds 49(14d6) on a turn is nothing special even in terms of DPR . Further both of these players have focused on not-that so this is a long way away from "breaking" anything. Go roll a silly over the top build and have fun. The players in question have built hyperfocused chars and are playing them as such. They're not gonna be bothered.

[sithlordnergal]

The Barbarian one seems a bit odd since you can only grapple up to one size category larger then yourself. That said you can easily grapple someone and fly into the air if you have a fly speed. I've used that same strategy to great effect in the past as a Wild Shaped Druid with the Fly spell cast on me. No one ever expects the flying Earth Elemental. Also did it to cheese the boss in Tomb of Annihilation. Transformed into a Fire Elemental, Wizard cast Fly on me, and I grappled it then dragged it under lava to kill it in about 3 rounds while I relaxed in the flames.

As for the Cleric, it is fully possible to get that sort of AC, just very difficult. It sounds like they may have mixed Base AC with current AC, since at best you could have 24 to 26 AC depending on the items and which Forge Cleric they use. However, its a build that takes up literally everything they have and leaves them vulnerable to things like magic. Compare that to a build like a Paladin/Sorcerer who can get 21 AC without magic items, and can easily go beyond 30 AC with a Cloak of Protection, +3 Shield, Defense Fighting Style, Haste/Shield of Faith, and Shield spell.

Heck, I have an AL Legal Paladin/Sorcerer/Druid that carries around a Staff of Power, +3 Shield, +2 Stone Plate Armor, and a Cloak of Displacement that has a Base 28 AC, can boost it to 30 with Shield of Faith, and can boost that to 35 with the Shield spell. My max is 37 if I get Haste on top of all that. Though I miiiight be swapping out the Cloak of Displacement for a Cloak of Protection...but by then its a bit excessive. And unlike your Cleric buddy, I didn't have to invest in much because I still have Smite, Shillelgah+PAM, Oath of the Ancient's resistance to spell damage, decent HP, spell slots for days, access to the Druid and Paladin spell lists, ect.

[Throne12]

Why hasn't the DM ask how do you have that high of AC?

[sithlordnergal]

Why hasn't the DM ask how do you have that high of AC?

Mostly because its a level 18 Paladin/Druid/Sorcerer in Adventures League, and they can read my log sheets to see I got all of my items in a legit manner. And to be honest, a 35 AC is the least you can do with a dedicated build at those levels. But those who do wonder get shown my:

20 AC from +2 Stone Plate Armor

+5 AC from +3 shield

+2 AC from Staff of Power

+1 AC from Defense Fighting Style

for my base of 28.

I'm sure the War Caster+Shillelgah+Staff of Power+PAM in a single hand for a d8 magical attack that can add 1d6 force to every hit with the 1d4 bonus action attack is a bit more cheese then the high AC.

[LudicSavant]

Mostly because its a level 18 Paladin/Druid/Sorcerer in Adventures League, and they can read my log sheets to see I got all of my items in a legit manner. And to be honest, a 35 AC is the least you can do with a dedicated build at those levels. But those who do wonder get shown my:

20 AC from +2 Stone Plate Armor

+5 AC from +3 shield

+2 AC from Staff of Power

+1 AC from Defense Fighting Style

for my base of 28.

I'm sure the War Caster+Shillelgah+Staff of Power+PAM in a single hand for a d8 magical attack that can add 1d6 force to every hit with the 1d4 bonus action attack is a bit more cheese then the high AC.

That's not a level 8 character with 600 gp to their name, though.

[sithlordnergal]

That's not a level 8 character with 600 gp to their name, though.

true, but you can still get there though at level 8 with the right class combo.

[LudicSavant]

true, but you can still get there though at level 8 with the right class combo.

What does that have to do with the subject being discussed?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

I know twoone ways to grapple something 2 size higher then you.

The athletics feat from UA and enlarge person.

Maybe he use those.

[RickAllison]

I know two ways to grapple something 2 size higher then you.

The athletics feat from UA and enlarge person.

Maybe he use those.

Brawny doesn’t help, it only makes you larger for carrying capacity. Good for making sure you can carry someone, but doesn’t let you grapple Huge. I think we would have heard if Enlarge Person was involved.

[Composer99]

Heya guys,

I recently joined a 5e game as a player. I used to DM 3.5 a lot and my biggest issue is leaving that mindset behind. Now im trying to do this really hard but i ran into two issues i have with two other PC's in the party.
Side note: our DM is new and is running his first campaign, His experience is mostly in being a 3,5 and 5e player.

We started and currently are at lvl 8. We got one uncommon magic item to choose. and about 600 GP each to spend, requiring the DM's permission to spend it on magic items on character creation. This is all great.
Now in my party two players are doing things that bother me a lot. So much so that its taking the fun out of it for me.

We have a Goliath forge cleric7/Fighter 1 that claims he has a base AC of 27.
If i build one i can get a base AC of 21 with plate, a shield and the defend style. With spells known i can raise it by another 2 using shield of faith. that would make a 23 at level 8, which is extremely high. Great. But did he do something wrong or am i missing something that he claims his base is 27? i mean no one cast it on him but even with the shield spell on top of this AC im still not getting higher than 25.

The other player has an Aarakocra barb/fighter in an unkown combination. He took barbarian for the large build and movement speed totems. And basically focused his character on movement speed and STR. I even buffed him with a haste at the start of combat as he asked for that. Now this guy proceeds to grapple a hill giant, lift it his double movement speed up (cause haste) and drop it. Sounds great but he cant fly with medium or heavy armor. So why can he fly lifting a giant? i tried all the RAW on this but it seems extremely lacking not straight up making it impossible, but not straight up saying you are supposed to do this either. Im very confused but i still think this is OP and i'm pretty sure this isn't RAI as it seems extremely broken (and the fact Tieflings and Aarakocra can't fly with medium or heavy armor) and this kinda took the fun out of playing the last encounter for me and most of the rest of the party.

Now i talked about it with the DM. He said he's going to look in to it. I also told him I'm all for the rule of cool. But the cleric AC makes it so that enemy's with a +7 to hit can only crit him (5% hit chance) but will hit the rest of the party about 60-85% of the time, depending on which player gets attacked. The Aarakocra dropping enemies like this took the chances away for any of the other party members to do anything. For instance both our DPS casters together with a lvl 4 and 3 spell slot did only half the damage the Aarakocra dropping it did. as his double movement speed just gave him 14D6 damage combined with a new grapple and a bonus attack
So yeah, what would you guys do/rule?

I'm seriously thinking of just retiring my char, rolling a mystic (either pure or multi class with warlock or monk for added shenanigans) or some other OP Build and breaking the game completely to show that broken characters spoil the fun for the rest of the party... But I'm pretty sure that would just end up making matters worse. So here I am.

The AC is sketchy. Given the parameters you have defined in terms of the limits on equipment it appears impossible. Based on the discussion on the thread the player is perhaps confusing their AC "cap" with "base" AC.

A Medium-size creature lifting Huge hill giants into the air and dropping them by means of grappling is impossible, even if it could fly while wearing medium or heavy armour.

While I'm not prepared to say whether the characters are cheating, mistaken, or some combination of the two, something is clearly not right, rules-wise.

Of course, as long as everyone is having fun, the extent to which these builds are legitimate within the rules is not an issue. However, not everyone is having fun - as you say, you aren't. If the other players are also not having fun, then you have a problem.

[Aliess]

When attempting the grapple fly, wouldn't that make you a mount and therefore unable to lift anything the same size or larger than you?

[BloodSnake'sCha]

When attempting the grapple fly, wouldn't that make you a mount and therefore unable to lift anything the same size or larger than you?

You need to mount something for it to be a mount.

If a horse hold my arm with his teeth and drag my around I am not riding him and he is not my mount.

[Bjarkmundur]

Lot of good pointers in this thread.

I however suggest you remind the DM that the player's tools are the DMs tools also.

Balance doesn't mean what the players can or cannot do. It's what a creature of the player's power level can or cannot do within the game world. ​This is one of only two reasons a DM will ever say no to a player's request, he doesn't want that sort of power to be available to his monsters.

We had a discussion about this in session 0 regarding rule of Cool. It isn't all encompassing, since whatever the players do the villain can do better. This really set the grounded tone I intended for the campaignt. It has even lead to some of the players enforcing penalties on themselves, trusting I'll do the same for the NPCs. I have a great group, that obviously have a good perspective on the big picture.

[SpikeFightwicky]

Maybe the lessons is:
If you're a new DM to the system, don't start your adventurers at level 8. :smallbiggrin:

It's important the DM has fun as well. If all their encounters get stonewalled by power builds he's not experienced enough to challenge, will that affect his enjoyment as well? (maybe yes? only the DM in question can answer that)