Optimizing Literally The Worst

[Amechra]

Here's a challenge for all of you: you're given the following ability scores:


When you've picked your first class, look at the multiclassing tables. Each ability score required to multiclass into or out of your class will be set to 13 before racial bonuses. The rest of your ability scores will be set to 8 before racial bonuses. If you're starting off with a Fighter, pick either Strength or Dexterity.

To give an example, a Dragonborn Paladin would have Strength 15/Dex 8/Con 8/Int 8/Wis 8/Cha 14.

Assuming that you don't just laugh in the DM's face and leave, what are the best characters you can come up with using these rather harsh rules?

[Doug Lampert]

Here's a challenge for all of you: you're given the following ability scores:



Assuming that you don't just laugh in the DM's face and leave, what are the best characters you can come up with using these rather harsh rules?

Always consider Moon Druid when handed bad attributes but able to arrange to suit. I'm not saying that's the absolute best, I'm just saying it's perfectly playable.

[Yunru]

Always consider Moon Druid when handed bad attributes but able to arrange to suit. I'm not saying that's the absolute best, I'm just saying it's perfectly playable.
Moon Druid is always a good pick for low stats, I agree.

A long while back there was a DPR King challenge with stats capped at 14. Surprisingly a GWM PAM War Cleric came out on top.

[Imbalance]

Assuming that you don't just laugh in the DM's face and leave, what are the best characters you can come up with using these rather harsh rules?

Assuming, per usual, that there are dice involved, I come up with something that interests me and fret not over marginally limited ratings.

[nickl_2000]

If you don't want a Moon Druid, then you look at other options to make yourself more SAD or overcome issues.

Hexblade to focus on Charisma.
Dwarf to be able to wear heavy armor with no speed issues.
Tortle to get an AC of 17 without any effort.
Warforged with heavy armor.


Frankly a Tortle Hexblade sword and board with 19 AC will do perfectly fine for a good long time.




As a side note, I thought this would be a thread about optimizing the Purple Dragon Knight Fighter.

[CheddarChampion]

Hill Dwarf cleric - d8+1 HP, good AC, and decent Wis.
Wood Elf/V. human Ranger/Rogue MC - stay out of melee range.
V. human barbarian - PAM/GWM, rage, reckless attack. Low AC but good HP.

[Bobthewizard]

Moon druid is probably the best bet but you can't all be druids. I'd have 2 in the party though so they could take turns with tanking and crowd control.

Otherwise, that 8 CON just scares me, so I'd want something with +2 CON. Then you either need medium armor on a race with +1 DEX or heavy armor on a race with +1 STR.

You could go Air Genasi ranger for the +2 CON and +1 DEX. That gets you a 10 CON, 14 DEX and 13 WIS, with 8's in STR, INT and CHA. Variant Human with +1's to DEX and CON and then resilient CON, durable or tavern brawler also gets you to the same stats. DEX based fighter works but your WIS will be 8. Use a rapier, medium armor and a shield. Use ASI's to pump DEX and take spells that don't require WIS. You could later multiclass into fighter, monk, or rogue. (Edit: per cNagy Below, Warforged envoy with +2 CON and +1 DEX works here too)

Mountain Dwarf, Earth Genasi or Variant Human (with one of the CON half feats above) as a paladin would get you 14 STR, 10 CON and 13 CHA, with the rest 8's. Heavy armor, shield and a longsword. Same idea as above but using STR instead of DEX. Paladins use CHA more than rangers use WIS though. Fighter works here at the loss of CHA. You could later multi class into warlock, sorcerer, bard, fighter or barbarian. (Edit: Warforged Envoy with +2 CON and +1 STR works great here)

It would be hard to play a starting barbarian, bard, cleric, monk, rogue, wizard, sorcerer, or warlock with these rules. Even Hexblade with 8's in both DEX and CON would be hard.

Edit: Just saw this suggestion above. A Hill Dwarf, heavy armor, casting cleric would work. Maybe Life?

[GorogIrongut]

Three thoughts came to me after reading your post. I will address them each in the order they came to me.
1. 'Bad characters are so fun to play!' Seriously. There's something liberating about playing a character that is sub par, the worst of the worst. It allows you to really get into roleplaying. You'd be surprised how many times you manage to something epic despite your poor stats.
2. 'The Paladin, Ranger and Monk have an unfair advantage under these rules.' They all need two characteristics at 13 to multiclass and thus will have 2 stats at 13 instead of just the 1 the rest of the classes get. If I were you, I would suggest to your DM that the player decide. They get to allocate the following wherever they choose: 13,13,8,8,8,8. That evens the playing field and enables the players to potentially think about a future multiclass if they are thus-wise inclined.
3. 'Ohohohohoh.... These rules scream for someone to play a Wild Sorceror.' If the DM wants to control your starting stuff, the world is very much under their control. They don't like to relinquish control (and possibly stop min-maxing). What better kind of character to play than a Wild Mage who has no control over anything? You can literally go crazy.
Unfortunately 5E's rules for Wild Sorcs are a bit stupid and require DM buy in to make them work well (kind of like an Illusionist). If your DM is down with the idea of a Wild Mage, then you will have the most fun possible in this game. If not, then I'd probably go Gloom Stalker Ranger with a later multi class into Barbarian. Savagely hunt everything down.

[GlenSmash!]

Everyone is hurt buy having an 8 Con. Druids less so due to Wildshape. Moon druids least so by having Combat Wildshape. But as that has been mentioned...

My pick is the High Elf Artificer. 8, 10, 8, 14, 8, 8. I can stick with damaging cantrips until 3 then go Battlesmith with a repeating Heavy crossbow I can stay Ranged to keep my 8 Con from coming into Play as much as possible.

With my first 3 ASI's pump Int to 20, and at 18th level finally make myself an Amulet of Health and get a nice bump in HP.

[CNagy]

I guess my pick would be Warforged Envoy Ranger.
Str8 Dex14 Con10 Int8 Wis13 Cha8

Start with Ranger, then 5 levels of Monk (Kensei), 3 more levels of Ranger (Gloom Stalker). Finish out with Monk (or throw 2 levels of Rogue in there somewhere).

[Fable Wright]

Kobold GWF Purple Dragon Knight.

Str6 Dex15 Con8 Int8 Wis8 Cha8

Fighter gives me the ability to get the feats I really need: Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Grappler, Charger, Martial Adept, and Mounted Combatant.

[Gignere]

Kobold GWF Purple Dragon Knight.

Str6 Dex15 Con8 Int8 Wis8 Cha8

Fighter gives me the ability to get the feats I really need: Great Weapon Master, Savage Attacker, Grappler, Charger, Martial Adept, and Mounted Combatant.

This is an impossible build small creatures can’t use heavy weapons.

[GlenSmash!]

This is an impossible build small creatures can’t use heavy weapons.

They can. They just have disadvantage.

Of course it's a terrible idea with disadvantage and a -2 strength modifier.

[Dualswinger]

Halfling diviner with the lucky feat. Focus on spells that don’t force the enemy to make saving throws. Battlefield control like walls, and buff spells. When you do need to make your own or enemies roll, you have so much dice manipulation your character must appear blesses by the gods.

[Drache64]

Can you play a mystic?

Otherwise I think barbarian will just cleave through most things anyways

[Particle_Man]

So do fighters get to choose Str 13 or Dex 13 on this system? Or do they get both?

[JakOfAllTirades]

Sorry, but I can't really get past the "laugh in the DM's face and leave" option on this one.

[Kane0]

Magic missile mage!

[Fable Wright]

They can. They just have disadvantage.

Of course it's a terrible idea with disadvantage and a -2 strength modifier.

And GWM for -5 to hit, yes. If the DM demands that the players suck, I'm going all in.

More to what the OP was looking for:

Criminal Eladrin Samurai. Just dump everything into Dexterity. Your low Con doesn't matter if nothing ever reaches you past the Druid's Wild Shape/Summons, and by level 12 your damage is on par with any other Sharpshooter Elven Accuracy Samurai. Eladrin chosen for bonus action teleport to disengage and GTFO if you're in melee.

[stoutstien]

Sorry, but I can't really get past the "laugh in the DM's face and leave" option on this one.

I don't know if everybody starting with the same array it could be interesting. Definitely pushes for very focused builds.

[Amechra]

Can you play a mystic?

Otherwise I think barbarian will just cleave through most things anyways

I'd assume that Mystic is just Int 13 (much like the Artificer).


So do fighters get to choose Str 13 or Dex 13 on this system? Or do they get both?

I'd say that they'd pick one. They don't need both to function like, say, a Monk does.


And GWM for -5 to hit, yes. If the DM demands that the players suck, I'm going all in.

Honestly, at that point, you have such a low chance to hit (your bonus is Proficiency-7 and disadvantage? Yikes!) that you might as well just make No-Hit McGee.



I appreciate the people going a bit further afield than just "take Moon Druid and laugh all day". My own contribution: A Hobgoblin Abjuration Wizard would have 8/8/10/14/8/8 for ability scores and Arcane Ward would help address the party's low HP (assuming we hit 6th level :smallbiggrin:)

[AdAstra]

If you are allowed to multiclass, I would consider either a buff-oriented Hill Dwarf sorcerer (probably Divine Soul) that starts with one or two levels in Paladin (maybe a hexblade dip later), or, bear with me (hehe), a Beastmaster Ranger, probably either Wood Elf or Envoy/Skirmisher Warforged if allowed.

Both of those give you two decent stats, reasonable AC (Hill Dwarf has heavy with no movement penalty, Ranger has medium armor, both have shields), enough HP to not be totally helpless (Sorcadin gets +2 Con and Hill Dwarf bonus HP, ranger has a d10 hit die which isn't awful for a ranged character, and can be supplemented by Warforged's great AC and +2 Con), and ways of contributing that don't rely on their stats.

The Beastmaster's companion scales with your proficiency, and with a Giant Poisonous Snake, Wolf, or Velociraptor (only if your DM is lenient with multiattack on the companion), can do very substantial damage, and the GPS can skirmish decently with it's 10 ft. reach. If Wood Elf, Elven Accuracy can offset your lower accuracy in conjunction with Archery, and bring your Dex up to 16. 35 ft. speed should help a lot to keep out of melee. Hunter's Mark will be a dependable ally when you don't want to send your companion in. At 5th level Healing Spirit will help with you and your companions' staying power and give your allies some great healing. Level 9 gives you Conjure Animals, a very strong spell not reliant on Wisdom that can take heat off of you. Hunter is also probably sufficient if BM is too much of a deal breaker, since Colossus Slayer only needs one of your attacks to hit. A rogue multiclass would also be a fine choice for a Hunter build, to get some extra sneak attack damage that's quite likely to proc with two attacks, even with lower Dex.

Divine Soul can twin buff spells, and smites mean that while you won't hit often, you can still hit pretty hard. You'll probably want to rely more on the buffing though, at least until you can get an ASI to bump your Str and Cha up to 14. Twinned Haste or Greater Invisibility (would work great in conjunction with the Ranger build above), Extended Aid cast at high level, lots of good things available. That lack of Con save proficiency is a killer, but if your teammates support you as much as you support them you should be okay.

[Willie the Duck]

Is the entire party going to have this limitation, or just you? There are plenty of support characters who could handle this fairly well.

[GlenSmash!]

And GWM for -5 to hit, yes. If the DM demands that the players suck, I'm going all in.

More to what the OP was looking for:

Criminal Eladrin Samurai. Just dump everything into Dexterity. Your low Con doesn't matter if nothing ever reaches you past the Druid's Wild Shape/Summons, and by level 12 your damage is on par with any other Sharpshooter Elven Accuracy Samurai. Eladrin chosen for bonus action teleport to disengage and GTFO if you're in melee.

Disadvantage and -7 to hit?

That's bold indeed.

[Eldariel]

Moon Druid is always a good pick for low stats, I agree.

A long while back there was a DPR King challenge with stats capped at 14. Surprisingly a GWM PAM War Cleric came out on top.

Do you happen to have a link to that thread? Would be interesting.

@OP: The Artificer seems like a good pick. Just build stuff and stay outta combat wombat. Any Wizard can also work out just fine since they excel at not getting hit and many of their spells can produce underlings and have solid effects even at zero saves. War Wizard or Abjurer to have some buffer between your squishy butt and pointy death.