Character for an Arena

[Trask]

A long term campaign I've been playing in just ended, with all of us reaching 20th level and demi-god status. One of the players, a wizard, expressed interest in hosting a tournament, inviting creatures from across the planes to compete for a Wish he would grant. So 15 years later all our characters will attend and bring one champion, a new 20th level character of our creation.

So...what kind of character should I make?

Its a 70x70 arena, domed by 60ft high walls of force. Expected terrain shifts with flowing lava, floods, chasms, and the like. The matches will be 2v2 brackets, although were not entirely certain how things will proceed towards the end. We get a short rest between each match, but no long rest.

The only rules are
- No wish
- No teleporting yourself or others out of the arena

As for character creation
- Standard array
- Each of us starts with 1 legendary magic item.
- Feats from PHB and Xanathar's
- All races and classes from anything published are fair game.

I've never really done anything like this before, so anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.

[Galithar]

You either want to build to win initiative and kill your opponent in one turn, or for survival and kill your opponent on turn 2. With only short rests in between you need to keep health up between matches.

Debilitating conditions is a good way to go, it just means you place the fate of the match on a single saving throw. You need to have multiple different saving throws to target. Be prepared to break line of sight with spellcasters. Darkness (that you can see through with Eldritch Sight or similar) is the best option, but you need to have fog cloud or something similar in case your opponent has the ability to see through magical darkness.

A control spell to stop melee combatants and/or a "don't die" button. (Like Shadow Sorcerers Cha save to stay at 1 HO instead of going to 0) Artificers can get this up to 6 times by breaking attunement with their infusions, but you lack any serious punch to take someone out of a fight, and can only reattune to 1 item per short rest.

Edit: Strategy is you need to focus fire. Both people need to pick a target and dump a Nova on it. If you have a team mate with a lot of Nova potential you can try to use a control effect to take one person out of the fight. Wall of Force can do this with no save against anyone that can't teleport. I recommend you take it use it to single any Martial (or even caster you suspect doesn't have a teleport prepared) out of the fight while you deal with the other one.

If teams rotate do what you can to make your teammate the main target. If they don't rotate/change try to keep damage balanced and have a means of Healing. Even a few low level spell slots can make the difference between living one more round or not (cast between combats not during)

[Teaguethebean]

Is it a series of 1v1's or a battle royale.

[Man_Over_Game]

Often mentioned in any debate with level 20 characters, Moon Druid is a good suggestion.

A Dex-Samurai with Sharpshooter would probably win Initiative and Alpha-Strike someone down in the first turn without being hard-countered with something like Counterspell.

Actually...that's probably a winning strategy right there. Even if you managed to bring a Samurai to 1 HP, they'll still have the chance to finish you off.

Alternatively, Paladin capstones are incredibly powerful. The Redemption Paladin in particular would be able to cast Counterspell, although they might have trouble if the spell in question is past level 5 (since the Paladin will need to roll to succeed).

[Foxydono]

A long term campaign I've been playing in just ended, with all of us reaching 20th level and demi-god status. One of the players, a wizard, expressed interest in hosting a tournament, inviting creatures from across the planes to compete for a Wish he would grant. So 15 years later all our characters will attend and bring one champion, a new 20th level character of our creation.

So...what kind of character should I make?

Its a 70x70 arena, domed by 60ft high walls of force. Expected terrain shifts with flowing lava, floods, chasms, and the like. The matches will be 2v2 brackets, although were not entirely certain how things will proceed towards the end. We get a short rest between each match, but no long rest.

The only rules are
- No wish
- No teleporting yourself or others out of the arena

As for character creation
- Standard array
- Each of us starts with 1 legendary magic item.
- Feats from PHB and Xanathar's
- All races and classes from anything published are fair game.

I've never really done anything like this before, so anyone have any suggestions? Thanks.
Well, the obvious choice is a lvl 20 moon druid. They are insanely hard to kill. Give him any item you fancy.

Another good choice is a lvl 20 paladin with 20 Dexterity and 20 Charisma and the mask of the dragon Queen (all masks combined into one). You got insane armor, saves (including three legendary). Maybe pick up shield master.

If you multiclass, there are infinite possibilities. I personally like a Yuan ti pureblood paladin 6, sorcerer 14 (draconic). Get belt of Storm Giant Strength and 20 Charisma. You got advantage on saves, fight, smites etc. Of course there are many other variants with warlock, but I like this one best.

[Quoz]

Hard to go wrong with a level 20 Artificer, their capstone is a crazy boost to saves and survivability. In a setting where everyone else gets one magic item, you are attuned to 6.

A level 20 zealot barbarian literally cannot die from HP loss. So pour feats and magic items into saves to increase survivability vs save or suck.

Spellcasters are probably popular. A bard with glibness can counterspell anything with a 3rd level spell slot. And some of their save or suck spells, like feeblemind, are straight up encounter enders.

[Eldariel]

Level 20 Wizard is obviously the best choice, but how you go about it depends on how much you're e.g. allowed to abuse minionmancy. Divination, War Wizard, etc. are all reasonable (Illusion if you could prebuff with Mirage Arcana perhaps). Divination is brutal in PvP as you can force an enemy to fail the save and they don't get to roll anything. Of course, Rod of Absorption or similar is pretty important. For Moon Druids specifically, you might want to prepare with something like Power Word: Kill to ensure you can get rid of at least one (Disintegrate was Sage Adviced to not work but you'll have to check that interaction at home). Ironically, Polymorph is pretty good against them too (though Con-saves can be rough to make them fail, but if you roll 1, it's an autofail for anyone).

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Well, the obvious choice is a lvl 20 moon druid. They are insanely hard to kill. Give him any item you fancy.

Another good choice is a lvl 20 paladin with 20 Dexterity and 20 Charisma and the mask of the dragon Queen (all masks combined into one). You got insane armor, saves (including three legendary). Maybe pick up shield master.

If you multiclass, there are infinite possibilities. I personally like a Yuan ti pureblood paladin 6, sorcerer 14 (draconic). Get belt of Storm Giant Strength and 20 Charisma. You got advantage on saves, fight, smites etc. Of course there are many other variants with warlock, but I like this one best.

Power Word Kill and other similar spells, instantly kill moon druids so watch out the form you take.

Edit:

Go for broke. All in. Send a level 20 Cleric to use Divine intervention?

Prepare for that to fail, but everyone at the table would probably love you for having balls of steel.

[nickl_2000]

It's been mentioned before, but I will say it again.

Level 20 Moon Druid with high Dex, Alert Feat, Sentinel Shield and other things to boost init. You have a solid chance to win initiative.

First turn, Cast call lightning upcast). Then bonus action wildshape into something with burrowing (earth elemental so you aren't an animal type) and tremorsense and hide 30+ feet underground. Your tremorsense tells you where to drop the lightning each turn and you are protected from nearly anything since they can't see you and you are underground. Even if someone can get to you, you still have insane HP.


The truth is that in situations like this the PC with the highest initiate generally wins though.