5e Throwdowns #2: Judgement Day, aka the terminator!

[Dork_Forge]

After the first contest was so successful why not keep it going and what better inspiration for a sequel?

The Concept: The Terminator/Your hardest to kill build

The goal here is to be as hard to kill as possible without taking a route of straight up avoidance, you want to keep walking dramatically like the iconic T series we all grew up fearing. Votes will decide which character is the toughest on the block but imaginary bonus points will be awarded to any build that isn't entirely dependent on set up (doesn't get red in the face over being surprised).



Some rules for guidance:

-No UA, only officially published materials

-You must include a stat array (Point Buy or Standard Array)

-Build to 20 with insights on how the build hands at levels 5, 11, 17 and 20 (include hp and AC at each point for each of reading)

-Multiclassing and feat optional rules in play

-Variants for races available (V. Human, Dragonmarks, SCAG variants)

-No magic items unless you have a way to create them from a class feature

-Normal starting items and gold, mundane armor upgrades be assumed to happen during tier 2 (so you can mention Plate/Half Plate in your commentary but you can only include it in snapshots for levels 11,17 and the final 20).

-Catchy names and fluff are not a requirement but are always nice to read



Suggested format:

Level 20 level split:

Race:

Stats: Str x Dex x Con x Int x Wis x Cha x

Background:

Starting level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 5th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 11th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 17th level:

Any guidance or commentary you want

At 20th level and final thoughts:



Voting:

To sort the wheat from the chaff we'll vote on builds and declare a 'winner' (a concept that will hopefully continue in future threads and put the contest into this), to vote simply make a post quoting the build you want to vote for (snipping the content to keep things getting out of hand) and say something that indicates you're voting e.g. +1, get's my vote etc.

-Each user only gets one vote but you can edit your post at any time before the deadline to change your mind.

-A user can submit more than one build but they must be in separate posts (and not back to back to respect forum rules)

-You cannot vote for yourself

-Each throwdown thread will run for 7 days after which no new builds will be accepted for contention, the voting deadline will be 24 hours after the build deadline, votes will be tallied and the winner announced (any vote edits after the deadline has passed will also not be counted, if the original vote cannot be seen the vote will be null and void).

Terminator build deadline: 22/05/2020 @ 7pm ET, 23/05/2020 @ 12am BST.

Voting deadline: 23/05/2020 @ 7pm ET, 24/05/2020 @ 12am BST.



I'm looking forward to what all the optimisers around here come up with so without further ado, let's THROWDOWN





Previous winners:

Throwdown #1: The Gish - Sithlordnergal's The Undying Barbarian (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24497507&postcount=27)

[Dork_Forge]

The Contenders

Sithlordnergal's 'The Celstial Zealot' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511486&postcount=5)

Kane0's 'No Frills' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511534&postcount=6)

Amechra's 'Proper Dwarven Martial Arts' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511589&postcount=9)

Alpharn_999's 'Dwarven Funerary Savant' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511633&postcount=10)

Alpharn_999's 'I'm Still Standing' (yeah yeah yeaaah) (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511664&postcount=12)

Greywander's 'Literally The Terminator' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511723&postcount=14)

JellyPooga's 'The T-Halfthousand' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24512144&postcount=21)

Kane0's 'Even Less Frills' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24512676&postcount=24)

Chad.e.clark's 'The True Chosen of Gruumsh' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24512714&postcount=26)

SociopathFriend's 'The Resistant' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24512884&postcount=27)

HPisBS' 'DunDun-Dun-DunDun' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24513097&postcount=28)

Sithlordnergal's 'Just a Moon Druid' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24513131&postcount=29) 1 Vote

Man_Over_Game's 'Barbarian Gnome Zealot Acolyte' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24514069&postcount=35)

HPisBS' 'T-44-28: The Relentless' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24514846&postcount=37)

Alucard89's 'The Caster's Bane' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24515737&postcount=40)

Waazraath's 'Trixie and her Loys Canis Terminus' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24515974&postcount=41)

GlenSmash!'s 'Rough Guideline' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24515998&postcount=42)

Zonugal's 'Lord Deathmire' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24516941&postcount=49)

LudicSavant's 'The Regenerator' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24520668&postcount=51) 7 Votes

HPisBS' 'T-44: Tank' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24520968&postcount=62) 4 Votes

Skylivedk's 'SkyNet' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24521117&postcount=66)

Dork_Forge's 'The Wolverine/T-1000' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24523574&postcount=102)

DualSwinger's 'Frosty the Glowman' (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24524788&postcount=116)


This time we have 23 entries, a fantastic turnout!

The winner is Ludic Savant's 'The Regenerator'

[Chad.e.clark]

Oooh, I have an idea for this one. This'll be fun.

[Amechra]

I have the dumbest meme build for this. It's terrible, sure, but it's kinda hilarious.

[sithlordnergal]

Hmmm, even though it wasn't what I was hoping, I'm still gonna submit this build. Its similar to my Undying Barbarian, but unlike that build this one doesn't rely on Temp HP. Even if you surprise it, its not gonna die.

The Celestial Zealot


Level 20 level split: Zealot Barbarian: 15 / Celestial Warlock: 5

Race: Human


Str: 13+1 / Dex: 12+1 / Con: 15+1 / Int: 9+1 / Wis: 11+1 / Cha: 13+1



Str: 18 / Dex: 14 / Con: 18 / Int: 10 / Wis: 12 / Cha: 14


ASIs:

-Resilient: Dexterity
- Str +2
- Con +2
- Str +2

Background: Acolyte


Starting level: Barbarian 1-4

You'll want to start out as a Barbarian, and take the Zealot subclass. You won't have as many resistances as a Bear Totem Barbarian, but you'll be harder to kill in the end. Take Resilient: Dexterity at level 4, that way you can have proficiency in Dex saves and a 14 Dex.


At 5th level:

Take one level of Barbarian, then take five levels of Warlock. That should get you to level 10 with a Barbarian 5 / Warlock 5 split. You'll want to be a Celestial Warlock, and be Pact of the Tome. Your spells won't really matter much outside of Armor of Agathys and Mirror Image. Armor of Agathys is always an amazing choice, especially if you're going to be in the front lines, and the same goes with Mirror Image. Your Invocations are the important part for this build. You'll want the following Invocations: Fiendish Vigor, Aspect of the Moon, and either Tomb of Levistus or Devil's Sight. PErsonally, since you're a Human, I'd take Devil's Sight, but both options are really good.

That said, Aspect of the Moon and Fiendish Vigor are absolute musts for this build. Fiendish Vigor gives you a nice little buffer of Temp HP, just in case someone surprises you. While Aspect of the Moon makes it so you never have to sleep, and you can't be put to sleep by any means. So you can just continue to walk towards your target, never stopping, never sleeping. If your DM lets you take a Short Rest while you walk, you could technically take a Long Rest as you walk thanks to Aspect of the Moon.


At 11th level:

From here on out, you're going pure Barbarian. Your end goal is Barbarian 15, because of Persistent Rage.

At 17th level:

Keep going as a Barbarian, you nearly have it.

At 20th level and final thoughts:

At levels 19 and 20 you gain two very special, and very important, features. The first is Rage Beyond Death, from the Zealot subclass. You no longer fall unconscious when your HP reaches 0, and you no longer die due to death save fails while Raging. At level 20, you gain Persistent Rage, which makes it so your Rage won't end early unless you choose to end it or you fall unconscious. These two abilities make it so you can't be killed by conventional means.

Usually the way to beat a build like this is the Sleep spell, but thanks to Aspect of the Moon you're immune to it. You also have proficiency in Dex saves, which will help you avoid spells like Disintegrate. And to top it off, the Celestial Warlock grants you a small amount of Bonus Action healing. That way, if you're somehow knocked to 0 HP and your Rage is about to end, you can heal yourself and reset your death fails before you fall. Then you can go into a Rage again on your next turn and keep on fighting. It won't matter how much is thrown at you, you'll keep charging forward.

As for being surprised, you have plenty of HP to deal with a surprise attack, 215 HP with 8 Temp HP from Fiendish Vigor to be exact.. And even if you get surprised, you have advantage on initative, and can act while surprised thanks to your Barbarian levels.To add in a bit of horror to this build, if you need to track someone down, this build is perfect. Because if they're alive, then they need to sleep...This build does not. They will peruse their quarry, never stopping, never sleeping, resting on the road as they keep marching steadily towards their target.

[Kane0]

Bit of a baseline to get everyone started:

No Frills
Mountain Dwarf Abjurer Wizard 20

Background: something from Ravnica for the extra spells, like Boros for access to Aid and Death Ward.

Str 10, Dex 13 (14), Con 16 (18), Int 15 (20), Wis 12, Cha 10

Survivorship credentials:
- Light & Medium armor proficiency
- Poison resistance
- Arcane Ward
- Improved Abjuration
- Spell Resistance
- Spell Mastery (Shield and Invisibility)
- Signature Spells (Counterspell and Haste)

ASI choices (order in your preference):
Resilient (Con)
Dwarven Fortitude
+1 Dex
+5 Int

Optionally drop INT increases for Tough, Durable, Lucky, Warcaster and/or Magic Initiate (Resistance/Bless or Sanctuary) based on preference.

Spells of note:
Cantrips: Blade Ward, Move Earth
1st: Alarm, Absorb Elements, Expeditious Retreat, False Life, Feather Fall, Find Familiar, Fog Cloud, Longstrider, Mage Armor, Protection from Good/Evil, Shield
2nd: Blur, Darkness, Enlarge/Reduce, Invisibility, Levitate, Mirror Image, Misty Step, Rope Trick, Warding Wind
3rd: Blink, Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Feign Death, Fly, Gaseous Form, Glyph of Warding, Tiny Hut, Haste, Nondetection, Thunder Step, Wall of Sand, Wall of Water
4th: Dimension Door, Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Faithful Hound, Private Sanctum, Resilient Sphere, Polymorph, Stoneskin
5th: Bigby's Hand, Far Step, Passwall, Wall of Force, Wall of Stone
6th: Arcane Gate, Contingency, Globe of Invulnerability, Guards and Wards, Magic Jar, Tenser's Transformation
7th: Etherealness, Forcecage, Magnificent Mansion, Plane Shift, Simulacrum, Symbol, Teleport
8th: Clone, Demiplane, Mighty Fortress
9th: Foresight, Invulnerability, Shapechange, True Polymorph

It's very simple. Level 1 is spent being as Dwarfy as possible hunkering down in whatever armor you can get your hands on (or mage armor otherwise). Move Earth is useful for making impromptu cover if you don't want to burn a spell slot on a protective spell. Then as soon as level 2 comes along you use, abuse and reuse Arcane Ward supplemented by whatever spells you want to layer on top, ranging from Shield and Blur all the way to Foresight or Invulnerability.
Dodging and Blade Ward are free and Arcane Ward can be recharged when you use Shield, Absorb Elements or Counterspell. Walk dramatically at whatever speed you want to expend slots to get, and when you're done walking around you're still a fully operational battle station wizard. Even if you choose not to bump your INT up to max you have plenty of spells that don't need it like Haste, Magic Missile, Forcecage, etc.

And of course if you do happen to die at later levels, with things like Clone and Simulacrum chances are it’s not a big deal anyways.

[SociopathFriend]

I have to imagine some freakish combination of Paladin/Barbarian is gonna pop up given that would be the path of best Saves and best HP.
Does the Rogue 'Uncanny Dodge' ability count as 'avoidance'?

[Dork_Forge]

I have to imagine some freakish combination of Paladin/Barbarian is gonna pop up given that would be the path of best Saves and best HP.
Does the Rogue 'Uncanny Dodge' ability count as 'avoidance'?

No, that's damage reduction, by avoidance I mean hanging at the back or otherwise staying out of danger. The aim of this context is to be heading into danger/the enemy and being able to take whatever is thrown at you, how you handle that (high AC, high hp, damage reduction etc.) is what the building part is all about.

[Amechra]

Proper Dwarven Martial Arts

Level 20 level split:
Monk (Way of the Long Death) 20

Race:
Mountain Dwarf, choosing Mason's Tools as our racial tool proficiency.

Starting Ability Scores:
Str 16 / Dex 12 / Con 17 / Int 10 / Wis 13 / Cha 8

Ability Score Increases:
4th: Dwarven Fortitude. Constitution 17→18
8th: +2 Strength. Strength 16 → 18
12th: Heavily Armored. Strength 18 → 19
16th: +1 Strength and +1 Wisdom. Strength 19 → 20, Wisdom 13 → 14
19th: +2 Constitution. Constitution 18 → 20

Background:
Guild Merchant

Starting level: Monk 1. AC 12, 11 HP. Saves: Str +5, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
OK, so you might be staring at this and wondering what the heck I'm planning. And, honestly, I don't blame you - this is a really squishy start for a supposedly tough build. Oh, don't worry, we'll toughen right up. Our first order of business? Get our hands on some medium armor and a battleaxe - our parents might have sent us to Pansy Elf School to learn how to Monk, but we're a proper dwarf and need the soft, loving embrace of solid iron to truly feel safe. A simple Chain Shirt is an effective +2 to our AC, and all it costs us is our future mobility and all of our first-level features! Man, this is going to go swimmingly.

At 5th level: Monk 5. AC 15, 46 HP. Saves: Str +6, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
Our AC is a bit in flux at this point - I'm assuming that we at least have a suit of Scale Mail to our name, since that stuff is pretty cheap. On the other hand... we're the most HP-rich Monk around, which has to count for something, right? But the real fun is what we've gotten over the last three levels:

At 2nd level, we picked up Patient Defense, which lets us Dodge as a bonus action for 1 Ki. This lets us pretend our AC is higher than it actually is.
At 3rd level, we become a Monk of the Long Death. Whenever we kill someone in melee, we get 1+Monk Level temporary hit-points, which is actually pretty alright. We also have Deflect Missiles, which means that we don't have to care at all about mundane ranged attacks.
At 4th level, we spent our ASI on Dwarven Resilience. If you're unfamiliar with this feat, this lets us spend an HD whenever we Dodge. I think you can tell where we're going here.

Basically, we can spend 1 Ki as a bonus action to give everyone disadvantage on their attack rolls against us, give ourselves advantage on Dexterity saves, and potentially regain 1d8+4 HP. Sure, we might not be the best at hurting people... but we're going to be annoyingly hard to kill. Oh, right, we have Extra Attack too, and this thing called "Stunning Strike"? Eh, it seems kinda useless - who's going to fail a DC 12 Constitution save?

At 11th level: Monk 11. AC 16, 97 HP. Saves: Str +8, Dex +5, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
OK, now we've reached the bit that's utterly hilarious. We have achieved Mastery of Death, and are now really hard to kill. It's simple, really - whenever we drop to 0 HP, we can spend 1 Ki to drop to 1 HP instead. There's no action involved, and no other limits on how we can use this ability. Essentially, as long as we have Ki in the tank, we can't die from damage that doesn't drop us to -97 HP or below in one shot. And, combined with our annoying dodge-y healing... yeah. Have fun dropping this guy. We also have this ability that inflicts Frightened - the DC is only 13, though, so it's hardly worth the effort.

At 17th level: Monk 17. AC 18, 148 HP. Saves: Str +11, Dex +7, Con +10, Int +6, Wis +8, Cha +5
One of the funny things about high-level Monks are their absurd saves. Diamond Soul (which comes online at 14th level) gives us proficiency in every saving throw (including, funnily enough, death saves), and lets us reroll a failed save for 1 Ki. Again, this doesn't take us an action or anything, so we essentially have advantage on any saving throw whenever we need it. On top of that, we picked up Heavily Armored (because why not?), and are now decked out in Full Plate (because why not?). Our higher max HP makes us even harder to defeat through raw damage (I can't think of anything off the top of my head that can reliably deal 149+ damage in lump sum). It feels like we've come a long way from our weak original form - truly, this is the glory of dwarven martial arts!

Oh, right, and our save DC is now DC 16. I guess we could use Stunning Strike, our fear aura (Hour of Reaping), and our massive damage booster (Touch of the Long Death) if we really had to... but we're here for defense, not offense.

At 20th level and final thoughts: Monk 20. AC 18, 193.5 HP. Saves: Str +11, Dex +7, Con +11, Int +6, Wis +8, Cha +5
A Monk with almost 200 HP is pretty weird, I'll be honest. But hey, look at those fantastic saves! And that pretty-decent AC! And that-

OK, yeah, I'll come clean: this guy is kinda miserable, in a way that only armored Monks can be. While our defenses are mighty indeed, our offense really isn't. Sweet merciful Morradin our offense is awful. Since we're wearing armor, we lose out on Martial Arts and Unarmored Movement. That means that, among other things, our Attack action is two attacks dealing 1d10+Str damage, and pretty much nothing else. A bonus action to swat at someone twice for 1+Str damage each time is terrible, and we can hardly use our cool offensive features that call for a save because our DC is terrible.

However, this competition wasn't about making someone who can dish out damage - it was about making someone who can take it. If this build could get one magic item, it would be a Periapt of Wound Closure. It single-handedly would move this build's dodge-healing from "annoying" (5-12 HP) to "frustrating to chew through" (10-24 HP). And it's only uncommon!

...

Yeah. It's a meme build. What can I say?

EDIT: And then I read kane0's build, which also uses Dwarven Fortitude. I think I wear it better, though. :smallwink:

[Alpharn_999]

Now that we have a Way of the Long Death Monk in armor, I'd like to post a Way of the Long Death Monk played straight.

Dwarven Funerary Savant

Level 20 level split: Way of the Long Death Monk 20

Race: Hill Dwarf, for boosting relevant Abilities and the extra +1 HP/level.

Stats: Str 8 Dex 15 Con 15 (+2) Int 8 Wis 15 (+1) Cha 8, you're a savant, you're not particularly strong, social nor well-read, but that's fine, your job is to record deaths, not be one of those porters, an orator nor a sage.

Background: Anything that'll give History proficiency would be thematic, but it doesn't particularly matter in the long run.

Starting level: Monk 1 - 12 HP, 15 AC, +1/+4/+3/-1/+3/-1 saves

You're a reasonably hardy character, but only have the standard dwarf mobility at this point. You can get 2 attacks at this point, though, at 1d8+1d4+4 damage if both hit.

UA bonus: If your situation allows the alternate Monk weapons from the Class Feature Variants UA article, you can grab a battleaxe or warhammer instead of a quarterstaff or spear, for more dwarfy flavor. It's not that big of a deal, though.

At 5th level: Way of the Long Death Monk 5 - 53 HP, 16 AC, +2/+6/+4/-1/+3/-1 saves

At 2nd level, what's more intimidating than being on the receiving end of a slow walk? A slow walk that's a lot more faster than it looks, personally. You also get your basic Ki features, which are good.
At 3rd level, you get Touch of Death, which gives you 6 temp HP at this point if you finish off a thing.
At 4th level, you even off your Dex and Con, putting them at 16 and 18 respectively. You now have an effective HP/level of d8+5.
At 5th level, you get to punch twice normally as an action, also your punches are d6 instead of d4. You also get Stunning Strike, which only has a DC of 14, which is mildly unfortunate.

At 11th level: Way of the Long Death Monk 11 - 113 HP, 17 AC, +3/+8/+4/-1/+3/-1 saves

At 6th level, your punches are now magic! You also get an at-will Frighten that's not friendly-fireproof. If you have a friendly Paladin by 10th level, I can see this getting some use.
At 7th level, you are now particularly more dodgy, with Evasion. You also get to clear Charm and Frightened effects as an action, but the action cost is kind of screwy.
At 8th level, bump your Dex to +4. As a dwarf, your Dex mod is notably 1 slower than most other Monks, so you'd need at least 12 levels of Monk to max it, as opposed to 8.
At 9th level, you now ignore moats and castle walls, all the more to pursue your target. Stunning Strike DC is now 15.
At 10th level, you are now entirely immune to poison. You already were resistant to poison damage and had advantage against saves against poison previously though, so it's not as big of a deal if you weren't a dwarf.
At 11th level, your punches are now d8s, letting you ignore quarterstaffs entirely. You also get to say "No." to dying at most 11 times a short rest.

At 17th level: Way of the Long Death Monk 17 - 173 HP, 19 AC, +5/+11/+10/+5/+10/+5 saves

At 12th level, your ASI can be used to bump either Dex or Wis, depending if you're wanting to focus on punching harder or locking down targets respectively. Either way, your AC goes up by 1. Stunning Strike DC is now 16 if you bumped Wis.
At 13th level, you now get subtitles. Additionally, Stunning Strike DC is now 17 if you've bumped Wis last level, or 16 if you didn't.
At 14th level, you are now proficient in all saving throws, with at least +8 in the big three of Dex, Con and Wis. You also get to reroll failed saves for 1 Ki, without needing anything action economy-wise.
At 15th level, you get a fluffy ribbon.
At 16th level, you bump the other stat that you didn't bump at 12th. Your AC is now 19.
At 17th level, your punches are now d10, and you've transcended all mortal monk weapons, accounting for Kenseis. You also get to attempt to burn down a single target with a save or damage thing, which I feel isn't all that economic. Your Stunning Strike DC is now 18.

At 20th level and final thoughts: Way of the Long Death Monk 20 - 203 HP, 20 AC, +5/+11/+10/+5/+11/+5 saves
At 18th level, your survivability gets a large bump, with Empty Body granting resistance to everything but force damage. You're also invisible, so your attacks get advantage, if the thing you're attacking doesn't have Truesight or similar.
At 19th level, you bump your Wisdom to 20, getting your AC to 20, and your Stunning Strike DC to 19.
At 20th level, you get to do 3d10+15 damage on tap, with 4d10+20 if you spend one of your Ki points. On the defensive side, you have at least +10 on the strong saves, and +5 on the weak ones, 203 HP, 20 AC, Evasion, 25 temp HP every time you reduce something to 0 HP, the ability to spend Ki to say "No." to dying and the ability to get resistance to everything but force damage, and astounding mobility at 55 ft. walk speed and the ability to run across water and up walls.

[Amechra]

I am not remotely surprised that my gimmicky build that pulls all kinds of dumb contorted garbage is less effective than one that's actually played straight :p.

I might have to submit an actual attempt at some point. It probably won't be a dwarf, because the builds have been blandly similar so far.

[Alpharn_999]

And now for something original.

"I'm still standing!"

Level 20 level split: Ancients Paladin 19/Shadow Sorcerer 1

Race: Half-Orc

Stats: Str 14(+2) Dex 10 Con 14(+1) Int 10 Wis 10 Cha 14

Background: Doesn't really matter for this.

Starting level: Paladin 1 - 12 HP, 18 AC, +3/0/+2/0/+2/+4 saves

Your 1st level is in Paladin for the heavy armor proficiency. Half-orc is chosen for Relentless Endurance.

At 5th level: Oath of the Ancients Paladin 5 - 49 HP, 19 AC, +3/0/+6/0/+3/+5 saves

You go Ancients Paladin 5 ASAP to get Extra Attack.
At 2nd level, you pick the Defense Fighting Style, to maximize defense.
At 3rd level, you go for the Oath of the Ancients, for Aura of Warding and Undying Sentinel.
At 4th level, you take Resilient (Con), to even out the odd Con and to get proficiency in Con saves.
At 5th level, you get Extra Attack and 2nd level Paladin spells.

At 11th level: Oath of the Ancients Paladin 10/Shadow Sorcerer 1 - 101 HP, 21 AC, +5/+2/+9/+2/+6/+8 saves

You'd want to get Aura of Warding first, before dipping into Shadow Sorcerer.
At 6th level, you get Aura of Protection, improving your saving throws.
At 7th level, you get Aura of Warding, improving your durability against spellcasters.
At 8th level, you take your Sorcerer level, granting you Strength of the Grave, allowing you to potentially stay standing at 1 HP after being reduced to 0 HP twice a day, as well as possibly Booming Blade, Shield and Absorb Elements.
At 9th level, you get War Caster, letting you cast Shield and Absorb Elements while both hands are occupied.
At 10th level, you get 3rd level Paladin spells.
At 11th level, you get Aura of Courage.

At 17th level: Oath of the Ancients Paladin 16/Shadow Sorcerer 1 - 155 HP, 21 AC, +7/+4/+13/+4/+10/+14

At 12th level, you get Improved Divine Smite, improving at-will damage.
At 13th level, you get +2 Cha, to improve your saving throws.
At 14th level, you get 4th level Paladin spells, notably Death Ward, allowing you to stay standing at 1 HP after being reduced to 0 HP thrice a day.
At 15th level, you get Cleansing Touch, allowing you to clear debuff and control effects if they do not incapacitate you. You also get a 2nd 4th level spell slot, letting you cast Death Ward twice a day.
At 16th level, you get Undying Sentinel, allowing you to stay at 1 HP after being reduced to 0 HP 5 times a day, including Death Ward.
At 17th level, you'd want +2 Cha, to improve your saving throws. You also can get up to 4 Death Wards a day.

At 20th level and final thoughts: Oath of the Ancients Paladin 19/Shadow Sorcerer 1 - 182 HP, 21 AC, +8/+5/+14/+5/+11/+16

At 18th level, you get 5th level Paladin spells.
At 19th level, you get larger Auras.
At 20th level, you bump your Charisma to 20, improving your saving throws. At this point, you deal 2d8+3 per swing, and 2 swings per Attack action. Defensively, you have 21 AC, the ability to bump it up to 26 on a reaction, 182 HP, +5 to all standard saving throws, 2 unconditional "stay at 1 HP if reduced to 0" things, 1 "stay at 1 HP if reduced to 0" thing that is conditional and gated behind Cha saves, of which you have +16 for, and potentially 5 Death Wards per day if you spend all of your spell slots for it.

[LudicSavant]

Personally I am not a fan of Dwarven Fortitude with Long Death Monks.

Basically, you set yourself back 2 Dex ASIs, which is a big deal defensively for Monks, and an even bigger deal for Long Death Monks in particular.

Long Death features scale better with basically every defensive tool other than max hit points. For example, every point of AC will make every point of Death Mastery ki last longer while you're at 0 hit points. And will extend the value of each temporary hit point you generate. And it'll play very effectively off of your ability to give enemies Disadvantage (basically, Disadvantage scales in a very attractive non-linear fashion with higher AC; lowering your AC basically torpedoes your gains from Dodge). By contrast, some extra Max HP isn't really doing any more for you than it does for anyone else (or less, since the dwarf's AC will suck).

Also it diminishes your active defenses; just doing more damage with higher Dex will help you generate more temporary hit points, and reduce enemy offense (by stunning them more, or killing them sooner). And the extra movement speed will help you position better for Hour of Reaping (especially important since you need to avoid friendly fire when doing it).

[Greywander]

Literally Just the Terminator

Level 20 level split: Samurai fighter 8 / Ancients paladin 8 / War wizard 2 / Hexblade warlock 2

Race: Warforged (ERftLW version. Can we use the WGtE version, or is that cheating?)

Although it's often overlooked in favor of strictly mechanical bonuses, not requiring air, food, drink, or sleep is hugely thematic for a terminator-style character. They literally. Never. Stop. Every moment you spend eating or sleeping, he is getting closer. You can't bury him, he will eventually dig his way out. He can walk across the ocean floor to reach you, if he has to. Nothing short of actually killing him will stop him.

The AC bump and poison resistance also don't hurt.

Stats: (BTW, are multiclass stat requirements being enforced? I'd use a different stat array if they weren't.)

Str 15
Dex 8
Con 14 (12+2)
Int 13
Wis 8
Cha 16 (15+1)

Background: Any

Starting level: Fighter 1
[HP 12, AC 20, Saves +4/-1/+4/+1/-1/+3]

We get a free skill and tool from warforged, so between everything we should be proficient in Acrobatics, Athletics, Intimidation, Perception, and Survival. These skills will help us track, find, and reach our target. For tools, thieves' tools allows us to bypass obstacles that would slow us down, such as traps or locks, mason's tools let us deal more damage to brick walls to create our own doors, and carpenter's tools allow us to fortify a position in the event we need to go on the defense.

From fighter, we can pick up the Defense style straight away. With chain mail and a shield, the Defense style, and the warforged bump, we're sitting at 20 AC right from 1st level. Not bad!

At 5th level: Fighter 1 / paladin 2 / War wizard 2
[HP 40, AC 21/28, Saves +5/-1/+5/+1/-1/+3, +9/+3/+9/+5/+3/+7 with Arcane Deflection]

Paladin gives us some healing abilities, as well as access to Bless and Shield of Faith, depending on if we'd rather boost saves or AC. War wizard gives us the Shield spell and Arcane Deflection. We can also grab Mold Earth, Shape Water, and Booming Blade as our cantrips. Those first two have excellent utility, both for defense and for bypassing certain types of obstacles.

At this point, we hopefully have splint armor, boosting our AC to 21. We can boost our AC by +2 at-will with Arcane Deflection, or by +5 with Shield. Shield of Faith can add another +2, allowing us to reach 28 AC with the right spells.

At 11th level: Fighter 1 / Ancients paladin 7 / War wizard 2 / Hexblade warlock 1
[HP 87, AC 22/29, Saves +10/+3/+10/+5/+3/+8, +14/+7/+14/+9/+7/+12 with Arcane Deflection]

Now it's starting to come together. Ancients paladin 7 gives us both our defensive auras, adding our CHA mod to all our saves and giving resistance to all spell damage. Hexblade allows us to use CHA for our weapon attacks, and lets us pick up Eldritch Blast for a ranged option. We also get an ASI, which we will use to boost CHA to 18.

We should also have plate by now, giving us 22 AC, or 29 with the right spells.

At 17th level: Samurai fighter 7 / Ancients paladin 7 / War wizard 2 / Hexblade warlock 1
[HP 135, AC 22/29, Saves +13/+10/+13/+6/+10/+10, +17/+14/+17/+10/+14/+14 with Arcane Deflection]

Samurai fighter 7 gives us proficiency with Wisdom saves. With two more ASIs, we'll boost CHA to 20 and pick up Resilient (DEX). We are now proficient with all strong saves.

At 20th level and final thoughts: Samurai fighter 8 / Ancients paladin 8 / War wizard 2 / Hexblade warlock 2
[HP 158, AC 22/29, Saves +13/+10/+13/+6/+10/+10, +17/+14/+17/+10/+14/+14 with Arcane Deflection]

Not much changes here, except that we get two invocations, probably Agonizing Blast and Devil's Sight, as well as two more ASIs. I'd probably say Alert and Lucky would be the best picks. In the event that we fail a critical save, we can reroll it with Lucky. Same for enemy attacks, though as long as we have HP left those aren't usually as troublesome as a failed save.

This is pretty close to the highest AC you can get without magic items. The highest would be a fighter 1 / cleric 1 / War wizard 18 concentrating on Shield of Faith while spamming at-will Shield. It's not that much better, though, so I made saving throws the bigger concern. The best saves would come from paladin 6 / monk 14, but that only comes online at 20th level and those two classes conflict so much. I think this is a good middle ground, with both good AC and good saves that comes online earlier (by 5th level, even).

If magic items were permitted, I would of course pick up plate +3, a shield +3, the Staff of Power, the Robe of the Archmage, and the Cloak of Invisibility. This would boost our AC up to 30, or 37 with the right spells. We'd also get a further +2 to all our saves and advantage on saves versus magic. While invisible, all attacks against us would be at disadvantage, and most spells couldn't target us. Ah well, I understand why magic items had to be excluded.

[Kane0]

I have to imagine some freakish combination of Paladin/Barbarian is gonna pop up given that would be the path of best Saves and best HP.
Does the Rogue 'Uncanny Dodge' ability count as 'avoidance'?

I'll be honest, we're a few builds in and I'm surprised there has been neither Rogue nor Barbarian yet.

[Amechra]

Personally I am not a fan of Dwarven Fortitude with Long Death Monks.

I agree with you!

I mean, I also slapped it onto a Strength-based armor-wearing Monk. My entry is nothing if not a collection of poor build decisions, which become abundantly obvious when you look at the very next build.

[Dork_Forge]

Personally I am not a fan of Dwarven Fortitude with Long Death Monks.
Snipped for length
.

It sounds like you might be conflating Dwarf with using armor for some of your points and the point of Dwarven Fortitude isn't more max HP (though a nice side effect), it's to make your bonus action dodge more powerful by combining disadvantage on incoming attacks with healing.


Literally Just the Terminator

Race: Warforged (ERftLW version. Can we use the WGtE version, or is that cheating?)

Stats: (BTW, are multiclass stat requirements being enforced? I'd use a different stat array if they weren't.)


They're the same thing, Wayfinder's was updated to remove the broken playtest version with the final version.

Yes the reqs are in force.

I like you went for a Warforged for the theme!


I'll be honest, we're a few builds in and I'm surprised there has been neither Rogue nor Barbarian yet.

I'm hoping for some Goliaths!

[LudicSavant]

It sounds like you might be conflating Dwarf with using armor for some of your points

I am not talking about Dwarves using armor at all, I'm not sure how you got that impression. :smallconfused:


and the point of Dwarven Fortitude isn't more max HP (though a nice side effect), it's to make your bonus action dodge more powerful by combining disadvantage on incoming attacks with healing.

Right, and it's not actually super good at doing that, for reasons above. What you gain from Dwarven Fortitude is offset by what you lose in other factors like AC (which happens to synergize exceptionally well with Dodge, as well as with various Long Death features).

You can spend hit dice to heal HP when you Dodge (giving you more hp for that fight, if not the adventuring day overall) but will be taking more damage in exchange. Does that make sense?

[Skylivedk]

Proper Dwarven Martial Arts

Level 20 level split:
Monk (Way of the Long Death) 20

Race:
Mountain Dwarf, choosing Mason's Tools as our racial tool proficiency.

Starting Ability Scores:
Str 16 / Dex 12 / Con 17 / Int 10 / Wis 13 / Cha 8

Ability Score Increases:
4th: Dwarven Fortitude. Constitution 17→18
8th: +2 Strength. Strength 16 → 18
12th: Heavily Armored. Strength 18 → 19
16th: +1 Strength and +1 Wisdom. Strength 19 → 20, Wisdom 13 → 14
19th: +2 Constitution. Constitution 18 → 20

Background:
Guild Merchant

Starting level: Monk 1. AC 12, 11 HP. Saves: Str +5, Dex +3, Con +3, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
OK, so you might be staring at this and wondering what the heck I'm planning. And, honestly, I don't blame you - this is a really squishy start for a supposedly tough build. Oh, don't worry, we'll toughen right up. Our first order of business? Get our hands on some medium armor and a battleaxe - our parents might have sent us to Pansy Elf School to learn how to Monk, but we're a proper dwarf and need the soft, loving embrace of solid iron to truly feel safe. A simple Chain Shirt is an effective +2 to our AC, and all it costs us is our future mobility and all of our first-level features! Man, this is going to go swimmingly.

At 5th level: Monk 5. AC 15, 46 HP. Saves: Str +6, Dex +4, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
Our AC is a bit in flux at this point - I'm assuming that we at least have a suit of Scale Mail to our name, since that stuff is pretty cheap. On the other hand... we're the most HP-rich Monk around, which has to count for something, right? But the real fun is what we've gotten over the last three levels:

At 2nd level, we picked up Patient Defense, which lets us Dodge as a bonus action for 1 Ki. This lets us pretend our AC is higher than it actually is.
At 3rd level, we become a Monk of the Long Death. Whenever we kill someone in melee, we get 1+Monk Level temporary hit-points, which is actually pretty alright. We also have Deflect Missiles, which means that we don't have to care at all about mundane ranged attacks.
At 4th level, we spent our ASI on Dwarven Resilience. If you're unfamiliar with this feat, this lets us spend an HD whenever we Dodge. I think you can tell where we're going here.

Basically, we can spend 1 Ki as a bonus action to give everyone disadvantage on their attack rolls against us, give ourselves advantage on Dexterity saves, and potentially regain 1d8+4 HP. Sure, we might not be the best at hurting people... but we're going to be annoyingly hard to kill. Oh, right, we have Extra Attack too, and this thing called "Stunning Strike"? Eh, it seems kinda useless - who's going to fail a DC 12 Constitution save?

At 11th level: Monk 11. AC 16, 97 HP. Saves: Str +8, Dex +5, Con +4, Int +0, Wis +1, Cha -1
OK, now we've reached the bit that's utterly hilarious. We have achieved Mastery of Death, and are now really hard to kill. It's simple, really - whenever we drop to 0 HP, we can spend 1 Ki to drop to 1 HP instead. There's no action involved, and no other limits on how we can use this ability. Essentially, as long as we have Ki in the tank, we can't die from damage that doesn't drop us to -97 HP or below in one shot. And, combined with our annoying dodge-y healing... yeah. Have fun dropping this guy. We also have this ability that inflicts Frightened - the DC is only 13, though, so it's hardly worth the effort.

At 17th level: Monk 17. AC 18, 148 HP. Saves: Str +11, Dex +7, Con +10, Int +6, Wis +8, Cha +5
One of the funny things about high-level Monks are their absurd saves. Diamond Soul (which comes online at 14th level) gives us proficiency in every saving throw (including, funnily enough, death saves), and lets us reroll a failed save for 1 Ki. Again, this doesn't take us an action or anything, so we essentially have advantage on any saving throw whenever we need it. On top of that, we picked up Heavily Armored (because why not?), and are now decked out in Full Plate (because why not?). Our higher max HP makes us even harder to defeat through raw damage (I can't think of anything off the top of my head that can reliably deal 149+ damage in lump sum). It feels like we've come a long way from our weak original form - truly, this is the glory of dwarven martial arts!

Oh, right, and our save DC is now DC 16. I guess we could use Stunning Strike, our fear aura (Hour of Reaping), and our massive damage booster (Touch of the Long Death) if we really had to... but we're here for defense, not offense.

At 20th level and final thoughts: Monk 20. AC 18, 193.5 HP. Saves: Str +11, Dex +7, Con +11, Int +6, Wis +8, Cha +5
A Monk with almost 200 HP is pretty weird, I'll be honest. But hey, look at those fantastic saves! And that pretty-decent AC! And that-

OK, yeah, I'll come clean: this guy is kinda miserable, in a way that only armored Monks can be. While our defenses are mighty indeed, our offense really isn't. Sweet merciful Morradin our offense is awful. Since we're wearing armor, we lose out on Martial Arts and Unarmored Movement. That means that, among other things, our Attack action is two attacks dealing 1d10+Str damage, and pretty much nothing else. A bonus action to swat at someone twice for 1+Str damage each time is terrible, and we can hardly use our cool offensive features that call for a save because our DC is terrible.

However, this competition wasn't about making someone who can dish out damage - it was about making someone who can take it. If this build could get one magic item, it would be a Periapt of Wound Closure. It single-handedly would move this build's dodge-healing from "annoying" (5-12 HP) to "frustrating to chew through" (10-24 HP). And it's only uncommon!

...

Yeah. It's a meme build. What can I say?

EDIT: And then I read kane0's build, which also uses Dwarven Fortitude. I think I wear it better, though. :smallwink:

I liked your writing style! The level one paragraph had me laughing. Why use strength though? You can ignore movement speed penalties from armour because Dwarf. Without strength you could have more wisdom which would give a better save and some kind of offense

[Amechra]

I liked your writing style! The level one paragraph had me laughing. Why use strength though? You can ignore movement speed penalties from armour because Dwarf. Without strength you could have more wisdom which would give a better save and some kind of offense

Because you go hard or go home. Plus, Mountain Dwarf gives me a +2 to Strength, so... why waste it?

[JellyPooga]

The T-Halfthousand

Level 20 level split: Totem Barbarian 12/Thief Rogue 8

Race: Stout Halfling

Stats: Str 14, Dex 16, Con 16 (20), Int 8, Wis 12, Cha 8

Background: Sailor (Pirate - Bad Reputation)

1st level: Barbarian 1 [AC: HP: 15]

This is pretty self explanatory. You're a level 1 Barbarian with good Dex. Grab a shield and forget the armour; you've got AC:18 naked and 30 (effective) HP. Why Halfling? 'cos it's funny. And terrifying. Pirate Background is just so he can shove people around and get away with it.

5th level: Barbarian 1 / Thief Rogue 4 [AC: 19 HP: 52

+2 Con (18). [2nd Story] Climbing doesn't slow him down. [Cunning Action] Faster than earlier models of terminator.

11th level: Totem Barbarian 3 / Thief Rogue 8 [AC: 20 HP: 121

+2 Con (20). . "Effective" HP 4 times listed. [Evasion] "Kill it with fire" no longer applies. Find alternative weapons.

[B]17th level: Totem Barbarian 9 / Thief Rogue 8 [AC: 20 HP: 193

Stronger; . Heavy objects no longer obstruct the T-Halfthousand. Faster; [Fast Movement] [B]You cannot run. Enhanced Detection Protocols [Dungeon Delver, Feral Instinct]; optimised to locate hiding spaces, improved reflexes against IEDs, traps and ambush. You cannot hide.

20th level: Totem Barbarian 12 / Thief Rogue 8 [AC: 20 HP: 269

[Relentless Rage] Automated repair systems allow the T-Halfthousand to continue to operate after taking critical damage. [Tough] Additional redundant systems enhance resilience.

[Dork_Forge]

I am not talking about Dwarves using armor at all, I'm not sure how you got that impression. :smallconfused:


You referenced the choice leading to lower mobility:


And the extra movement speed will help you position better for Hour of Reaping

I assumed you meant losing the enhanced movement speed since dashing wouldn't be commonly needed on a Monk for positioning purposes usually, though since you weren't talking about armor I guess you did mean Step of the Wind?



Right, and it's not actually super good at doing that, for reasons above. What you gain from Dwarven Fortitude is offset by what you lose in other factors like AC (which happens to synergize exceptionally well with Dodge, as well as with various Long Death features).

You can spend hit dice to heal HP when you Dodge (giving you more hp for that fight, if not the adventuring day overall) but will be taking more damage in exchange. Does that make sense?

I get where you're coming from, there's definitely a trade off but just by going for that kind of build you're inherently trading maxing stats early (and so some AC) for more hp. If you go Hill Dwarf then you can start with 15AC (so a dodging 'AC' of 20 which is pretty good), lower than an optimal Monk race, but to compensate you get an extra 2hp per level (starting stats of: 8 15 16 8 16 10) and a decent resistance. IMO (it feels that way based on experience, I haven't ran hard numbers) that extra hp cushion offsets the lower AC, especially since a this kind of build is just more likely to use Patient Defense in the first place rather than bonus attack or flurry. I don't really agree with it conflicting with Long Death abilities in a meaningful way (apart from the temptation to spend ki on patient defense), Touch of Death only triggers when you finishe a creature off, something which is more down to chance than anything else you could go entire combats or days (I know I have) damaging creatures only to not actually get the final kill (barring any bag of rats cheese which it seems vulnerable to).

I think the biggest trade off really is the lower to hit and damage but in the context of the thread that isn't super important and you can still be competent in that department and stun folks.

But different strokes different folks

[LudicSavant]

You referenced the choice leading to lower mobility

That's not because of armor, it's just a part of being a dwarf (e.g. they have a 25 foot movement speed).

[Kane0]

Right so having already done a 100% magic approach, now i'll do the opposite!

Even Less Frills
Hill Dwarf Fighter (Battlemaster) 10 / Barbarian 2 / Rogue (Swashbuckler) 8
Total Hit Points: 60 (Fighter) + 14 (Barbarian) + 40 (Rogue) + 100 (Con) + 20 (H Dwarf) + 40 (Tough) = 274 by taking average.

Str 13 (14), Dex 14, Con 17 (20), Int 8, Wis 13 (14), Cha 10

ASI Choices:
Resilient (Wis)
Dwarven Fortitude
Durable
Tough
+1 Con, +1 Str

Survivorship credentials:
+ Poison resistance
+ Heavy Armor + Shield proficiency
+ Fighting Style (Defense)
+ Second Wind
+ Action Surge
+ Battlemaster Maneuvers (Evasive Footwork, Parry)
+ Indomitable
+ Rage
+ Unarmored Defense
+ Danger Sense
+ Cunning Action
+ Fancy Footwork
+ Uncanny Dodge
+ Evasion

Tier 1: 3 Fighter then 2 Barbarian
Starting out you're a thick tin can with heavy armor, shield, defensive FS and using the dodge action coupled with second wind to heal up when you do get injured. Action surge can be used to quaff a potion or attack I suppose. Battlemaster nets you actionless bonuses to AC while moving and a use for your reaction, potentially turn hits against you into misses. Branching into Barb instead of taking an ASI will suck, but it's all for a good cause because you get rage to use your bonus action on before getting hurt and using second wind. This means you will want to drop from heavy armor to medium and start using action surge to attack if nobody is targeting you but that's OK, the damage resistance and save advantage makes up for it. A second level in barb nets us advantage on Dex saves in the odd event we don't use our action to dodge.

Tier 2: 1 fighter then 4 Rogue
Going back to fighter for a level gets our first ASI, which we will use on fixing up our Wisdom saves as up until now getting stopped in our tracks by things like Hold Person has been a primary weakness. Then we start taking Rogue levels; expertise in athletics helps avoid grapple attempts and Cunning Action lets us use our bonus action to close distance faster if necessary. A second ASI nets us the ability to heal as we Dodge.

Tier 3: 4 Rogue + 1 fighter
Just a few more levels in Rogue get us Uncanny Dodge and Evasion, both very important features doubling down on damage mitigation we already possess. Just remember to carefully weigh up your choice between Uncanny Dodge and Battlemaster Parry when facing incoming attacks. We finish up with Rogue 8 to pick up Durable, increasing our dodge action healing then back into Fighter to catch up on more ASIs.

Tier 4: 5 Fighter
If we live this long this stage is all about maxxing out our HP with Tough and a final ASI to get our Con to 20, but we also net ourselves Indomitable and an increase to our BM die size as well.

Alternatives:
- Warforged don't need to eat/sleep/breathe and really play up the visual, you could swap Dwarven Fortitude for Alert, Defensive Duelist, Lucky or something else
- Dropping one level of fighter or Rogue loses you an ASI in return for picking up the ever-popular bear totem for barbarian. It is only a net 20 HP, so probably a fair trade really
- Tiefling using Infernal Constitution trades dodge-healing for fire and cold resistance plus the options of taking up alternative racial traits like flight and Armor of Agathys as a racial spell
- Swapping BM for Samurai nets you some THP instead of maneuver defenses, but to me it's not enough to be worth it. But you could take up Defensive Duelist with this to mimic Parry.

[SociopathFriend]

I was going to submit something along the lines of Ancient Paladin / Scout Rogue but I only just now realized Uncanny Dodge specifically only works on Attacks not all damage.

[Chad.e.clark]

The True Chosen of Gruumsh.

Ok, so my idea is this: Half-Orc Divine Soul Sorcerer, Sage Background. Will try to do a proper write up later, but for just getting the idea out, here it is.

In a nut shell: we are a standard buffing and twinning sorceror until we get level 4 spells and then it's all about Polymorph. Take Warcaster, Lucky, Tough, Resilient (Wisdom) in roughly that order. Between Con saving throw proficiency, advantage on Con saving throws to maintain concentration, Lucky, and Favored by the gods, plus the Con bonuses of the beasts we shall be polymorphing ourselves into ( T-rex at level 7 [Sage background: would definitely have seen at least one picture book with a dinosaur] and Giant Ape, at level 8, which we are fluffing as a huge Orc, a champion of Gruumsh-incarnate) we should be pretty confident in making our Con saving throws.

Tough should apply to our Polymorph forms, adding a chunk of HP.

Aid is available for us, we upcast it to boost our max HP in all forms, adding more chunks of HP.

Heroes Feast is available at spell level 6, boosting max HP even further. Aid and Heroes Feast should stack as a) it increases max HP (i.e. it is not Temp HP) and b) they are from two different sources. Meaning huge chunks of extra bonus HP on top of all our castings of Polymorph.

We can pick up Scrying to track pur prey.

Only definite metamagic is subtle, to avoid Counterspell. Twin Polymorph to allow another combatant to feel the power of Gruumsh flow through them. Quicken Polymorph if you dont fear Counterspell (or pick up counterspell yourself to counter their Counterspell) and then proceed to crack their skulls.

We can burn lower level spell slots into sorceror points to change into level 4 slots for Polymorph when needed.

Level 18 brings us Unearthly recovery, which ties in nicely with the Half-Orc "stand back up with 1HP" ability.



Not super detailed, but a boatload of HP coming at you from a full caster. Also, AL legal if that matters to you.


Edit 1:
After sorceror 18, you could split a few different ways.

Barb 2 seems counter intuitive, with no-concentration while raging. But Barb brings a few interesting things that do work while Polymorph'ed: Reckless Attack, Unarmored Defense, and Danger Sense.

Fighter 2 for action surge. Dimension door next to the enemy caster, action surge Polymorph.

[SociopathFriend]

Oh the heck with it- it won't hurt me to toss it in anyways. I'm not experienced enough in this sort of thing to know which levels should go where though but I've spent long enough thinking about it that it's a waste if I don't post it. It could probably be improved.

I don't have a neat title but I guess I would call it The Resistant?


Level 20 level split: 15 Ancient Paladin / 5 Rogue

Race: Prob Variant Human

Stats:
Str 13+1
Dex 13*
Con 15+1
Int 8
Wis 9
Cha 14
*For your Variant Human feat I would grab Resilient (Dex) to get your Dex to 14 and to gain Proficiency in Dex Saving Throws.

Starting level: Paladin
Start Paladin and take it to level 2 so you can get that Defense Fighting Style to up your AC by 1.
Starting as Paladin gets you the best Proficiency gains in weapons, armor, and shields, as well as a better starting hit die.
Thanks to taking Resilient (Dex) at level 1 you will start the game Proficient in Dex, Wis, and Cha Saving Throws.


At 5th level:
The Rogue subclass is up to you given you're after the core Rogue abilities- personally I think Scout would work best for our purposes because as a Reaction you can reposition and thus potentially get out of a bad situation such as if you're being Flanked between two creatures. To boot it works best with the Ancient Paladin flavor of being a wilderness warrior. Not the most extreme white-room value but positioning and the ability to reposition can be quite important in some situations. There's not a lot of classes that can, at level 3, walk away from up to 7 enemies and not take a single attack from it as a Reaction.

You could go for Arcane Trickster however you're only looking at two 1st level spells outside of Enchantment and Illusion. If you choose that path instead I would recommend stuff that doesn't require Saves as your Intelligence is garbage. Pick something like Shield (+5 AC) or Absorb Elements (resistance to magic damage of certain elements). Given you're an Ancients Paladin, or at least you will be, Absorb Elements is fairly redundant.


At 11th level:
Spend one of those ASI's on Shield Master. Not only do you gain a useful Bonus Action if you're not busy Smiting- any Dexterity Saving Throw (which is most of the blasting spells and magical effects) that allows you to Save for half- you can instead Save to block the whole thing. And you get to add the shield's value to your Dex Save as well.
The other ASI should go to buffing either your Con or your Cha by 2. Con will get you more hit points but Cha will buff all your Saves. I will frankly assume you go for Charisma as I'm playing up the damage mitigation part of the build instead of the raw hit points.

If you've reached all 5 levels in Rogue at this point then you have Uncanny Dodge- allowing you to take half damage from a given Attack once per round per your Reaction. That's anything with an Attack Roll halved for your Reaction.
Given you should be at least 6 levels in Paladin at this point, specifically Ancients Paladin, you get to add your Charisma Mod to any Saving Throw you make. If you're encountering a bit more magical firepower than you'd like then hold off on Uncanny Dodge so you can go one level beyond 6 and gain free damage resistance to all spell-based magical damage.

You could make a Dexterity Saving Throw at 4 (Prof) + 2 (Dex Mod) + 2 (Shield) + 3 (Cha Mod) for a whopping +11 to a given roll. Given the absolute max one of these can be without items interfering is 18, that's pretty potent stuff for avoiding that kind of spell.


At 17th level:
Kronk what do you think?
"Oh yeah, it's all coming together."

At this point you should have both of your main Paladin Auras up and running- giving you permanent resistance to damage inflicted by spells AND a hefty bonus to your Saving Throws so long as you're awake. In addition by this point there is no chance you don't have your Aura of Courage as well- which is straight-up no being Frightened for you.
If it's a Dexterity Save you're adding over 12 to your given roll.
Any single Attack Roll that deals damage you can half for your Reaction.
We're sitting at two more ASIs. Your options are again Constitution or Charisma. You could alternatively go for Tough if you want more hp than a single Con bump will give you. I will again assume you've bumped Charisma both times per this build to max it out at 20.


At 20th level and final thoughts:
Well this is it. You've become as survivable as I could think of under my own power at least without copying someone else.
Finish up that Ancient Paladin to get the level 14 ability to turn off a given spell afflicting you if you failed the Saving throw to keep it off the first time and the level 15 ability where once, no matter what, you can survive being dropped to 0 and instead only drop to 1.

At 15 levels of Paladin and 5 levels of Rogue you're looking at:
An average of 155 hp. (15d10 + 5d8 + 60) and not only that- you're sitting on 75 points of healing you can toss out in a single go.
Your AC should be 15 + 2 + 2 + 1 for a total of 20 assuming you've scrounged up a suit of Half Plate and a Shield.
At a minimum any individual Saving Throw you make will have +4 added to it in the case of Intelligence and fully half of them will be sitting at a comfortable +11 because of your Proficiency and Aura stacking.
Both AC and your Saves can both be increased with certain Paladin spells- which you can cast all the way up to the 4th level. That means you can cast Death Ward you lucky pluck- not only will this let you repeat that bit about dropping to 0 and then living again once more but it explicitly will let you avoid auto-kill stuff that would normally avoid that exact thing.

The power of this build (at least so far as I can tell) is its ability to undo magical assaults. You have a large variety of methods to stave off those attacks but even if you fail to resist them you will possess all of the tools needed to remove them at least a few times. To boot you can be pretty mobile between your Rogue Bonus Actions and Reactions to slip in and out of your enemy clutches to prevent them from putting you in a bad situation.
Your minimum Dex Saving Throw with this build is 16- you need to roll a 3 to match the highest Dex Save another PC can throw at you. And being a Shield Master if you make that Save for Half then you can turn that half to 0.

[HPisBS]

I have a rather unorthodox hard-to-kill build, most similar to Kane0's abjurer so far:

DunDun-Dun-DunDun
Level 20 split: 1 Divine Soul Sorcerer / 19 Swords Bard

Race: Half Elf

Stats: Str 8, Dex 16, Con 14, Int 10, Wis 12, Cha 16→20

Background: Inheritor (Survival + Arcana) or Golgari Agent from Ravnica (Survival + Nature, and access to the Entangle spell)

Starting level: 8 hp, 13 AC
It doesn't matter much which we start with. I slightly prefer to start Sorcerer for Con proficiency, Shield, and lots of cantrips, including Resistance. Also because it just makes more sense than becoming a Sorcerer later on. Law for Bless, or Neutrality for Protection from Evil and Good. The last Sorcerer/Cleric spell can go to Absorb Elements.

Once per short rest, Favored by the Gods helps us to survive whatever save our prey throws at us via a 2d4 bonus.

Pick up Intimidation and drum proficiency upon becoming a Bard so that we can DunDun Dun DunDun (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXm3E-ODBa0) our way towards whatever poor soul we're bearing down on.

At 5th level: 36 hp, 16+ AC

Skills: 7/8 of: Arcana, Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival. Jack of All Trades for everything else, including initiative and spell checks.

Plus, we're an expert in two of them. Probably Survival, Investigation, or Perception to help track down our target(s).

Bard gets us tons of great spell options. Pick 7 to fit the theme (extending our own survival, ending our target's survival, and finding our target so we can then end its survival):
- 1st - Bane, Cure Wounds, Dissonant Whispers, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Heroism,
- 2nd - Blindness/Deafness, Detect Thoughts, Heat Metal, Hold Person, Invisibility, See Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, Phantasmal Force, Silence, Warding Wind

We also get a little extra out-of-combat healing via Song of Rest.

But most importantly of all, we can buff our defense for 4 rounds with Defensive Flourish. With one more level-up, it will refresh on a short rest. Swords Bard also gets us medium armor, so we can have base 16 AC in a breastplate.


At 11th level: 78 hp, 16+ AC

Our Flourish now runs on d10s. Also, we attack twice per turn as of Swords Bard 6.

Also, we get more expertise here. Maybe Stealth and Intimidation to help set terrifying ambushes. dundun dun dundun

+ another 5 notable Bard spells:
- 3rd - Bestow Curse, Dispel Magic, Fear, Glyph of Warding, Hypnotic Pattern, Leo's Tiny Hut, Nondetection,
- 4th - Dimension Door, Greater Invisibility, Locate Creature, Polymorph,
- 5th - Animate Objects, Dominate Person, Dream, Geas, Hold Monster, Synaptic Static

And even more importantly, 2 of these Magical Secrets:
- Counterspell, Spirit Guardians, Find Greater Steed, Resilient Sphere, Destructive Wave, Telekinesis


At 17th level: 120 hp, 18+ AC (standard 21 AC w/out resources)

Our Defensive Flourish now runs on d12s. Even better, we can spam it as a d6 for free starting at Swords Bard 14.

+ another 3 notable Bard spells:
- 6th - Eyebite, Tue Seeing,
- 7th - Regenerate, Teleport
- 8th - Dominate Monster, Feeblemind, Glibness

+ 2 Magical Secrets:
- Contingency, Disintegrate, Sunbeam, Wind Walk, Simulacrum

Pick up War Caster as the first feat back at Bard 12 (or earlier, if necessary). The remaining two ASIs aren't as integral, but Medium Armor Master seems like the right fit (heh) for the extra AC.

(However, if Find Greater Steed was a Magical Secret, then Elven Accuracy may be preferable here, with Mounted Combatant as the capstone.)

At 20th level and final thoughts: 141 hp, 18+ AC (standard 21 AC)

+ 1 more Bard spell:
- 9th - Foresight, Psychic Scream, True Polymorph

And the last 2 Magical Secrets:
- Demiplane, Mighty Fortress, Invulnerability, Wish

The capstone should probably go to Lucky. Other options are Tough, Resilient Dex, or even Alert or an actual ASI.


Bottom line:

The main thing that makes this build so hard to kill is spamming Defensive Flourish, probably while invisible, and supplemented with Shield when that isn't enough. With Medium Armor Master letting us get the full use of our Half Plate for a base 18 AC (even as we stealth), and free +1d6 Flourishes, our AC is generally around 21 or so (ranging from 19-24). Shield bumps that average to 26. And when we're against something dangerous, we can spend actual Bardic Inspiration dice to Defensive Flourish for an average of 24 AC, or 29 if we need to Shield.

- But with a 12 on our Flourish's Bardic Inspiration die, that jumps to a max of 30 / 35 AC! (Or still a minimum of 19 / 24 with a 1 on the die.)

As usual, spell choice is also crucial. But the most important spells for realizing the essence of a Terminator - the assassin that just keeps coming - concept are probably Contingency and Regenerate. And as a max level full caster, we can cast both twice without eating a higher level slot! (Heroism can serve as a poor man's Regenerate, if we can keep our concentration going. Under the right circumstances, a Glyph could help with that.)

- Foresight's essentially permanent advantage / disadvantage to everything also cements this as a basically unkillable character. Without that, the only boost to saves comes from the Divine Soul's level 1 and the Lucky feat. Though Wishing for Clones and Simulacrums does the trick, too.


TLDR: Summary of Defenses


spammable Defensive Flourish for +1d6 AC
⤷ standard 18+ / 23+ AC (medium armor master in half plate + Shield) = average 21 / 26 AC
or real Defensive Flourish for +1d12 AC five times / short rest = average 24 / 29 AC
Foresight for advantage / disadvantage on everything
Lucky for "super (dis)advantage" when we need it
- or Greater Invisibility for (dis)advantage on all attacks
Regenerate
Contingency
Counterspell, and many more great spells, possibly including Resilient Sphere
War Caster and Con save proficiency to maintain concentration
Fey Ancestry & Darkvision
Favored by the Gods for +2d4 to 1 save / rest

[sithlordnergal]

Welp, I added in my one build. I have a second build, but its really, really boring to be honest...But I may as well add it too.


Just a Moon Druid

Level 20 level split: Circle of the Moon Druid: 20

Race: Yuan-Ti

Starting Stats: Str: 8 / Dex: 13 / Con: 15 / Int: 9+1 / Wis: 15 / Cha: 10+2

Ending Stats: Str: 8 / Dex: 14 / Con: 16 / Int: 10 / Wis: 20 / Cha: 12

Background: Hermit

ASIs: Take your ASI's in the following order

- Resilient: Dexterity
- Con+1 / Wis +1
- Wis +2
- Toughness
- Wis +2


Levels 1-20:

So, seeing as there is no multiclassing in this build, there's no real reason to go over how it works in ever tier. Its a Moon Druid, everyone knows how they work, and honestly this build does nothing new on that front. You're going to use Wild Shape to Tank, and spells to aid in that tanking. You have Conjure Animals/Elementals/Woodland Spirits to aid in tanking by giving the enemy more targets to focus on, as well as a ton of battlefield control to help mitigate damage without really avoiding it. And at level 20 you can't die from normal means. Unless whatever you're fighting is doing more then 126 damage each and every round, your base HP can't be touched because you can just refresh your Wild shape HP as a Bonus Action each round. I have looked into it, you don't have to change forms. You can go from an Earth Elemental with 20 HP to an Earth Elemental with full HP without dropping out of Wild Shape.

While the build itself is a standard Moon Druid, the Race selection and feats are what help make this nearly unkillable. Thanks to Toughness and a 16 in Con, you'll be sitting around 203 HP in your base form. So even if you get knocked out of Wild Shape, you have HP on par with a Barbarian. Meanwhile Resilient: Dexterity gives you Proficiency in Dex saves while Yuan-Ti grants you advantage to all saves against spells and magical effects

As for the Race, I was torn between Yuan-Ti and Half-Elf for a while. You basically have a choice between advantage on saves against magic and immunity to poison or better starting ability scores, an extra Feat, and Sleep immunity. After having fixed my original mistake, I went with the Yuan-Ti. While Shield Master can help you avoid the effects of Disintegrate, so can advantage on the save. You are vulnerable to Sleep, but only if you forget to refresh your Wild Shape Form.

All in all, this is one of the tankiest builds I can think of. No other class or ability can give you 126 HP every round as a Bonus Action at level 20 while also giving you mobility options. Funnily enough, because Elementals are immune to Exhaustion, you can technically go without sleep, just like my Barbarian build above. So you can keep moving steadily towards the target, night and day, until you eventually run out of spell slots and have to take a long rest.


EDIT: I removed Resilient: Con from the build. Resilient: Dex is far better, and you sadly can't have both.

[Greywander]

ASIs: Take your ASI's in the following order

- Resilient: Dexterity
- Wis +2
- Resilient: Constitution
- Toughness
- Wis +2
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you can't take Resilient twice. IIRC, Elemental Adept is the only feat that allows you to take it more than once.

[Skylivedk]

Welp, I added in my one build. I have a second build, but its really, really boring to be honest...But I may as well add it too.


Just a Moon Druid

Level 20 level split: Circle of the Moon Druid: 20

Race: Half-Elf

Starting Stats: Str: 8 / Dex: 13 / Con: 15+1 / Int: 10 / Wis: 15+1 / Cha: 12

Ending Stats:

Background: Hermit

ASIs: Take your ASI's in the following order

- Resilient: Dexterity
- Wis +2
- Resilient: Constitution
- Toughness
- Wis +2


Levels 1-20:

So, seeing as there is no multiclassing in this build, there's no real reason to go over how it works in ever tier. Its a Moon Druid, everyone knows how they work, and honestly this build does nothing new on that front. You're going to use Wild Shape to Tank, and spells to aid in that tanking. You have Conjure Animals/Elementals/Woodland Spirits to aid in tanking by giving the enemy more targets to focus on, as well as a ton of battlefield control to help mitigate damage without really avoiding it. And at level 20 you can't die from normal means. Unless whatever you're fighting is doing more then 126 damage each and every round, your base HP can't be touched because you can just refresh your Wild shape HP as a Bonus Action each round. I have looked into it, you don't have to change forms. You can go from an Earth Elemental with 20 HP to an Earth Elemental with full HP without dropping out of Wild Shape.

While the build itself is a standard Moon Druid, the Race selection and feats are what help make this nearly unkillable. Thanks to Toughness and a 16 in Con, you'll be sitting around 203 HP in your base form. So even if you get knocked out of Wild Shape, you have HP on par with a Barbarian. Meanwhile Resilient in Constitution and Dexterity gives you Proficiency in both of those saving throws, and lets you use your proficiency bonus for them. This majorly helps in avoiding some of the nastier spells, like Disintegrate.

As for the Race, I was torn between Yuan-Ti and Half-Elf for a while. Advantage against all spells and magical effects is an amazing boon, but I wouldn't have been able to get Resilient: Con with it. Meanwhile Half-Elf grants me the flexibility with ability scores that I need for Resilient: Con, immunity to Sleep, and advantage against Charms. In the end I went with the Half-Elf because of those reasons. You can do this build with a Yuan-Ti, but you're susceptible to Sleep effects and you lose out on Resilient: Con.

As a final note that is kind of funny...Just like with my Barbarian build, you technically don't have to sleep with this build. Elementals are immune to the Exhaustion condition, and at level 20 you can remain an Elemental for 10 hours at a time. While I don't suggest foregoing sleep with this build, you can choose not to sleep and just keep on trucking as an Elemental.

This is probably the tankiest build I know of...I can't think of any other class that can grant you 126 bonus HP every single round, without fail, and without any resource cost at level 20. And thanks to the Resilient feats, you have proficiency in Dex saves, making it harder to kill you with spells like Disintegrate.

You can't take resilient twice, but you can take Shield Master for similar benefits. I guess an Earth Elemental could use a Shield ;)

EDIT: got monk'd while checking the books to be sure.

[sithlordnergal]

Ah, you guys are correct! I'll fix that

[Skylivedk]

Ah, you guys are correct! I'll fix that

Con is better than Dex though for a caster :) - especially since Shieldmaster can emulate Dexterity... but your build, your entry.

[sithlordnergal]

Con is better than Dex though for a caster :) - especially since Shieldmaster can emulate Dexterity... but your build, your entry.

Con is better then Dex in a lot of ways for most Casters. However, I feel Dex proficiency is actually more important for a Moon Druid then Con simply because the only way to be killed as a Moon Druid is through Disintegrate, Power Word Kill, or multiple Meteor Swarms. Shield Master is a good way to emulate proficiency, but it has one flaw. There are no magic items for the build, meaning you're stuck with a mundane shield. So there's an argument to be made that if you use Shield Master to block a Disintegrate spell, the spell would destroy your shield. Plus a +6 to Dex saves is more reliable then a +2.

Not to mention most Con saves are used to avoid Poison, which you're immune to already, or disease, which Lesser Restoration fixes immediatly. The only other Con save spell that poses any real danger is Sickening Radiance, but as an Elemental you're immune to Exhaustion so you don't have to worry about it. And finally, most creatures you can turn into either have a decent enough Con to make most concentration saves.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Reincarnate (Barbarian Zealot Gnome Acolyte, 1 free resurrection per session, Adventure League legal)

Point Array:

Strength: 15
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 15 (+1)
Intelligence: 8 (+2)
Wisdom: 10
Charisma: 8


Level 20 stats:

Strength: 16
Dexterity: 14
Constitution: 20
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 11
Charisma: 8

Race: Rock Gnome (+1 Con)

Background: Acolyte, but Skills are Acrobatics and Athletics

Get Athlete to boost your Strength, then get Resilience (Wisdom), and then max out your Constitution.

This build is specially designed for Adventure League. It's pretty ridiculous, and it hits the ground running at level 3.

Why?

Because of this:

"At 3rd level, your soul is marked for endless battle. If a spell, such as raise dead, has the sole effect of restoring you to life (but not undeath), the caster doesn’t need material components to cast the spell on you."
- Xanathar's Guide to Everything, Zealot Barbarian.

"A character possessing the acolyte background requesting spellcasting services at a temple of their faith can request one spell per day from the Spellcasting Services table for free. The only cost paid for the spell is the base price for the consumed material component, if any is required."
- AL DMG pg. 6.

Cost of a level 3+ Zealot Barbarian getting the Resurrection spell cast upon him each session: 1250gp

Cost of an Acolyte getting the Resurrection spell cast upon him each session: 500gp

Cost of a level 3+ Zealot Barbarian Acolyte getting the Resurrection spell cast upon him each session: 0gp



It shouldn't need any introduction, but the Zealot's relevant capstone:
"Beginning at 14th level, the divine power that fuels your rage allows you to shrug off fatal blows. While you’re raging, having 0 hit points doesn’t knock you unconscious. You still must make death saving throws, and you suffer the normal effects of taking damage while at 0 hit points. However, if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don’t die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points."


On top of having an extra life each session, being a Gnome helps by giving you Advantage on all mental saving throws, meaning you're far less vulnerable to any effects that would cause you to lose your Rage.

So not only do you have Advantage on your Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws, but being a Zealot allows you to make a reroll for those saves if you ever DID fail.



Just like the real Terminator, he's nearly unstoppable, killing him feels impossible, and doing so is only a temporary setback. Once this tiny ball of murder comes after you, there will be no stopping him.

[Skylivedk]

A bunch of great points relating to what provokes Constitution saves and how that isn't a threat.
Good points! Especially since playability outside of survivability isn't a metric so concentration saving throws don't matter. Chapeau.

[HPisBS]

Hardest to kill build:

T-44-28: The Relentless

Level 20 split: Artillerist Artificer 6 / Zealot Barbarian 14

Race: Warforged

Stats: Str 14 Dex 12→14 Con 12 (14) Int 15 (16) Wis 11→12 Cha 8

Background: Sailor Pirate (Athletics + Perception + Navigator's Tools)

As a warforged, we are the archetypal terminator. We don't eat, drink, sleep, or even breathe. We resist all poisons, and are immune to disease. We have a built-in +1 AC, as well as an extra skill and tool of our choice. We want the Herbalism Kit so we can make our own health potions... if that weren't disregarded for this thread. It's ok, we'll just have to rely on Goodberries in their place.

Start with Artificer for Int saves and the extra tool proficiency. We want Smith's Tools so we can make and repair our own armor and arms. After all, being an Artificer might give our terminator actual guns! Whether we use those optional rules or have to wait for Artificer 5, this is the first "terminator" in this thread to use any kind of firearm. (Not that our barbificer has the Dex to use the mundane versions effectively, but still.)

We start proficient in the Athletics, Perception, Survival, Arcana, and Investigation skills, as well as Navigator's Tools, the Herbalism Kit, Smith's Tools, Thieve's Tools, and Tinkerer's Tools. And we'll get yet another at lvl 3: Woodcarver's Tools.

Most spells aren't that crucial this time, but some notable ones are:
- cantrips - Mending, Fire Bolt, Resistance
- 1st - Absorb Elements, Alarm, Catapult, Cure Wounds, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall

What we really want is Infusions at level 2. We'll know 4, and can have 2 active at a time. We want Enhanced Defense for the +1 AC. The other can be whatever. Like Repeating Shot so we never have to reload our gun... or hand crossbow. Or maybe replicate Goggles of Night so we can track our quarry in the dark.

We become an Artillerist at level 3, gaining us the Shield spell (+ Thunderwave) and our Eldritch Cannon (Protector), which lets us spend a bonus action for some thp every round.

ASI: +2 Dex. It's tempting to boost Int to make our Cannon and spells that much more effective, but we're focused on defense here. (Plus, this makes us a little better with our gun, if that's allowed.) And by now, we've made ourselves some half plate, so our AC rises to 21. (15 + 2 shield + 2 Dex + 1 warforged + 1 infusion.)

Plus, we gain our Arcane Firearm, boosting our spells' damage by 1d8.

We also learn the best spells we'll ever get:
- 2nd - Blur, Darkvision, Heat Metal, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, See Invisibility, Web, + Scorching Ray & Shatter

Artificer 6 gets us some better infusions. At this point, we want to use Radiant Weapon to make our Arcane Firearm staff double as a +1 weapon that can blind an attacker 4 times. Also, we want to infuse a Repulsion Shield for +1 AC and a push-back effect, on top of the +1 we get from Enhanced Defense armor. Depending on what we're up against, we may want to use Resistant Armor instead for any passive resistance we choose.
- We can just customize our defenses for whatever we'll be hunting each day.

From there on, it's Barbarian all the way. Nice and simple.

Zealot gives us some extra radiant or necrotic damage on our melee attacks. Of course, we're picking radiant to go with our Radiant Weapon infusion (which also works with rage).

ASI: Shield Master. Now, not only do we have advantage on our Dex saves from Danger Sense, we also get +2 to single-target Dex saves, and can burn a reaction to prevent all damage when we succeed. Plus, we can now can shove our target prone on a bonus action to get advantage, even when we aren't being Reckless.

- Meaning, we reach level 11 being able to bonus action shove, then attack twice with advantage while they're prone. Between their being prone and our being 10 ft faster now, they won't be getting away. Sure, lvl 11 is a bit late to be getting a 2nd attack, but hey, we're focusing on defense here.

We rage to resist all non-elemental damage. Even though our Str is fairly low, Shield Master's shove may prevent us from needing to go Reckless for advantage. But even if we do need Reckless, it's still ok - we don't mind getting hit all that much, since we resist all non-elemental damage while raging. That effectively doubles the thp that our Eldritch Cannon Protector keeps us supplied with, which may be enough to keep our real hp fairly full. (Yep, we get to spam that thp even while raging, since the Protector doesn't require any casting, nor concentration. We just have to pick between it and shoving prone.)

Fanatical Focus lets us re-roll a failed save.

Feral Instinct helps our initiative, and to survive ambushes.

ASI: Resilient - Wis to help keep our rage going. Plus, it makes us a tad better at tracking our quarry.

Relentless Rage can keep us going, even if we somehow drop to 0 hp.


At 20th level and final thoughts: 180 hp, 21 / 22 AC

Last ASI: Magic Initiate - Druid for Goodberry. Also Mage Hand and maybe Resistance.

Now, to bring it all together: Rage Beyond Death. With this capstone, not even dying stops us. Literally. This is why we need our Herbalism Kit / Goodberry Initiate. Check this out:


... if you would die due to failing death saving throws, you don't die until your rage ends, and you die then only if you still have 0 hit points.

So, in the unlikely event that our 21-ish AC, blinding our attackers, our resistance to weapons, poisons, and potentially one extra element, our constantly refreshing thp (which resistance effectively doubles), and being a Resilient Shield Master somehow aren't enough to keep us going, all we need to do is use the last turn of our rage to use one of our Goodberries (or health potions we made). Then, we're back up to ≥ 1 hp + some thp, even if we already failed 3 death saves!

- And when we're not raging, we get to rely on Shield, Blur, Web, etc. A 4d10+1d8 Fire Bolt, too, if we pick that over Resistance.

Now, we are a truly relentless, indestructible monster. ... We just aren't the most efficient killing machine, since we usually only deal 3d6+13 bludgeoning / radiant damage per turn... though we are still fairly Brutal whenever our advantaged attacks manage to crit, so at least there's that.


TLDR: Summary of Defenses


Advantage / resistance to poisons
Immunity to disease and sleep
21 / 22 AC (15 half plate + 2 shield + 2 Dex + 1 Warforged + 1 Repulsion Shield infusion (+1 optional Enhanced Defense infusion on armor)
- optional Resistant Armor infusion (+ any 1 resistance)
Radiant Weapon infusion (reaction to blind an attacker for 1 turn on a failed Con save)
Eldritch Cannon: Protector (spammable 1d8+3 thp every round)
Rage to resist all b/p/s damage
Blur, Shield, Absorb Elements when we aren't raging
Danger Sense for advantage on Dex saves
Shield Master for better Dex saves, and to shove prone
Resilient - Wis
Fanatical Focus (Zealot) to re-roll failed saves
Feral Instinct for advantage on initiative & to ignore surprise
Relentless Rage to drop to 1 hp instead of 0
Rage Beyond Death (Zealot) to keep going even after failing 3 death saves
Goodberries from Druid Initiate

The only glaring weakness is that our highest stat is a mere 16, so we don't land so many hits ourselves.

[Aion]

Barbarian Zealot Gnome Acolyte (Adventure League legal)

On top of having an extra life each session, being a Gnome helps by giving you Advantage on all mental saving throws, meaning you're far less resistant to any effects that would cause you to lose your Rage.

So not only do you have Advantage on your Dexterity, Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma saving throws, but being a Zealot allows you to make a reroll for those saves if you ever DID fail.

I was working on something similar but with Yuan-Ti! I really like gnome though. A couple other thoughts I had were:

1 - You can start with a level of Cleric to get proficiency in Wis and Cha saves (and +1 heavy armor if Forge)

2 - If you have a Cleric level, once you have Persistent Rage you don't need to attack to keep your rage going -- so you could pre-cast Sanctuary, for example, to make yourself even harder to hit.

3 - You could also take Lucky to reroll an even more ridiculous number of saves :)

[Man_Over_Game]

I was working on something similar but with Yuan-Ti! I really like gnome though. A couple other thoughts I had were:

1 - You can start with a level of Cleric to get proficiency in Wis and Cha saves (and +1 heavy armor if Forge)

2 - If you have a Cleric level, once you have Persistent Rage you don't need to attack to keep your rage going -- so you could pre-cast Sanctuary, for example, to make yourself even harder to hit.

3 - You could also take Lucky to reroll an even more ridiculous number of saves :)

You can't Rage while in Heavy Armor.

Sanctuary ends if you attack. You could still Sanctuary->Rage, but then you can't really do anything but...grapple, I guess? Although that's still a "special melee attack", so even that might not be legal.

If I remember correctly, there's a rule that states that you cannot reroll a die more than once. So the most you could ever roll in a single instance, for any scenario, is Dis/Advantage with a single reroll (whether that's from Portent, Lucky, or another reroll effect).

Yuan-Ti was actually my first choice, but the Zealot+Acolyte combo works best in AL sanctioned games, which means I can't use both Xanathar's and the Monster Manual. It's definitely a good pick, though.

[Alucard89]

Hardest to kill, eh? Ok, I will just post mine build from "Collection of Effective builds" thread.

A build I was thinking about this week, so I want to share for others.

The Casters Bane

1 Hexblade/12 Ancients Paladin/7 Divine Soul Sorcerer Yuan-Ti Pure blood.

Alternative path: 2/7/11 if you don' mind loosing fear immunity and IDS and want Agonizing Blast + more sorcadin stuff.

https://i.imgur.com/RWY1qn5.jpg

Race: Yuan-Ti Pure Blood
Stats: 13 STR, 10 DEX, 15 CON, 10 WIS, 17 CHA (You can go 15 STR if you really want that plate armor, but in this build I prefer to have rounded stats to stack as much overall save throw bonuses as possible)
ASI (version 1): +1 CON,+1 CHA on level 5. +2 CHA on level 9, Sentinel level 13, Lucky level 17 or RES (DEX) on level 17.
ASI (version 2): Alternative for more damage: +1 CHA, +1 CON, +2 CHA, PAM level 13, Lucky level 17 or RES (DEX).
Progression (version 1): Paladin 1/Hexblade 1/Paladin 11/Divine Soul Sorcerer 7
Progression (version 2 to get RES CON for free): Divine Soul Sorc 1/1 Hexblade/7-11 Paladin/Rest Divine Soul Sorcerer

1. Role: You despise those who deny natural order, those who use arcane magic to bend reality and nature around them instead of living in harmony with it. Magic wielders fear you as their magic seem to have no effect on you...

You are Bane of all casters. You shrug off their spells and mind tricks. Their fireballs tickle you, their banishment spells are too weak to affect you.

You are also hell of a tank with high AC, high HP, tons of defensive spells, resistances and advantage vs spells. You also give Aura to all your party members. And you can still dish out very good damage. AOE, single target and range damage!

2. Key Features of Casters Bane:

1. Advantage on all saves vs spell/magic effects
2. Resistance to all spell damage
3. Proficiency in WIS and CHA saves which are very important. Lucky + Favoured by the Gods + Bless to boost saves if needed.
4. Immunity to Poison damage and Poisoned condition
5. +5 to all saves
6. Immunity to Fear
7. Shield + Absorb Elements spell.
8. Spiritual Weapon for extra DPR
9. Spirit Guardians for Extra DPR
10. Improved Divine Smite for extra DPR
11. 7th level slot caster
12. Armor of Agathys
13. SAD CHA
14. Very good single target melee DPR and good "per encounter" DPR and good single target range DPR.
15. Ensnering Strike + Nature's Wrath + Sentinel give good single target CC.
16. Depending on Path (if 11 Paladin or 7): tons more spell slots and defense spells.

3. Spells:

1. Hex + Curse for everyday DPR increase + Single Target boss fight
2. Very good Moonbeam spell for good AOE damage on your action.
3. Misty step + 20 CHA + Aura + Advantage on Spell Saves + Lucky means that Force Wall or Force Cage, Banishment etc. spells are joke to you and you will just walk away from them.
4. Silence spell + Sentinel makes sure that enemy caster is unable to leave your reach.
5. Resistance to spell damage + advantage on saves + Favoured by the Gods + Lucky + Absorb Elements spells will make sure you will take petty damage from almost anything.
6. You can still Smite the hell out of someone on your attacks as any other Paladin. You also crit on 19-20 with thanks to Curse.
7. High AC of min. 19 + Shield of Faith + Shield spell if needed.

4. Damage:

1. Hex + Curse + Improved Divine Smite + Longsword + Dueling, dealing 2 x (2d8 + 1d6 + 11) = 47 DPR. If you go PAM you can crank up even more and combine wiht Holy Weapon instead of Hex. So PAM + Holy Weapon + Curse + Dueling would be 3 x (2d8 + 11) + 2d6 + 1d4 = 69,5 DPR.
2. Spiritual Weapon on level 16 adds additional 2d8 + 1d6 + 10, so additional 22.5 DPR if you don't go PAM route (you can get it faster if you go for 7 levels of Paladin instead of 11 and rest Sorcerer).
3. Spiritual Guardians instead of Hex can add another AOE DPR with min. 3d8 to max 7d8 radiant damage around you.
4. Smites, increased crit range.
5. Eldricht Blast + Curse + Hex when fighting range enemies.
6. Haste can add another attack at higher levels.
7. Moonbeam till you get Spirit Guardians can be upcasted up to 6th level slot, dealing 6d10 radiant damage to enemies every turn.
8. Mirror Image + Sentinel can add another attack on reaction.

5. Anti-Caster:

1. Almost impossible to stop with any spell
2. Resistance to all spell damage
3. Sentinel + Silence spell. Run to enemy Wizard, cast Silence around you and him. Curse him with bonus action. He can't teleport out, he can't disengage (Sentinel). Use Lucky and make sure you hit him and stop him in place. Smites are not spells so you can smite the hell out of him.
4. Misty Step to teleport out of Hard-CC spells like Force Cage.
5. Almost impossible to stop with any CHA spell-saves like Banishment.
6. Enhance Ability + Counterspell + 20 CHA can shut down quite a lot of spell if you prefer this route.

Overall a very solid build that stays stronger and is progressively getting even stronger throughout all Tiers. On Tier 4 you are pretty much unstoppable and you still bring all the good of Paladin, but now enchanced. You still deal very good damage and solid Nova, while being pain the abs for every caster. And you are hell of a tank.

Now, the reason behind 7 levels of Divine Soul to finish build:

As Paladin you always need more slots. Sorc/Bard dips always provide that. Next thing is that after level 11 Paladins don't really get much. And since level 12 is ASI, we can just go for it. We could go level 14 for Cleansing Touch which is thematic for this build, but I think we are already really well covered vs magic. Paladins are really good in Tier 1-3. In Tier 4 they are still great but they don't bring anything new. I think that additional damage boosts thanks to spells like Spiritual Weapon or Spirit Guardians are really solid. 7 Levels of Hexblade would also work I think, same as with for example Lore Bard. I think those 7 levels are really flexible, thought I think for non-PAM build - Spiritual Weapon is something that is always worth to get. You can also go 13 levels of Paladin just to grab Find Greater Steed. But it's better for striker type of hero, you are tank so you want to sit on boss/caster face and it delays ASI further, so I would stick to 12 levels.

The other route would be to go standard Sorcadin route and multiclass to Sorc at level 1 /7. However I really like anti-fear Aura of Paladin and Improved Divine Smites. Unless you have a caster who cast Heroes' Feast before every sleep - fear immunity is hard to pass. The 1/7/12 Build also opens up Holy Weapon buff later. But that buff will come at level 15 total. While Hex + Improved Divine Smite is already 1d6 + 1d8 vs 2d8 of Holy Weapon and IDS is always on. I don't really think it's that worth. I guess you have to ask yourself what do you want from your Casters Bane. 2 Levels of Hexblade would also give Agonizing Blast, making this build "good" at pretty much everything. Question is how much delay in slots progression you are willing to take.

[Waazraath]

Trixie, and her loyal Canis Terminus

An old 3.5 optimization adagium was "a turtle is not a threat". In that spirit, my contribution to this contest is "only defenses does not a terminator make". In my view, a big gun is also highly to preferred... so behold, my take on the 5e Terminator:

It was a rather terrible experience, really. I mean, we knew somebody could come to break the prisoner out. We were prepared, we thought. We had 2 dozen of guards, decent lads with crossbows. We erected barricades, from which we covered the entire courtyard with a line of fire, from the safety of cover.

But she just walked in, through the front gate, bold as a demon, alone for that unholy piece of machinery at her side. We opened fire of course, but it was to no avail. Our arrows just bounced off. She returned fire, a shot every few seconds, almost every shot a hit. She just moved on through hail of bolts, ignoring them while relentlessly fireing that thing she was wielding. Her mechanical abomination jumped a barricade and started mauling us. Ten of our men fell, then twenty, before the captain could release the warden: a brute of a hill giant that stormed through the courtyard towards her. She took a moment before taking her next shot, and when it hit, our warden simply dissapeared into nothingness. That was when I broke and ran.

When I returned, the prisoner was gone of course. But you know the weirdest thing? All my buddies that had fallen: none of them died. Not only did she ignore our fire, and shot down a score of men, but she did it so expertly that she avoided any fatal woundings. I wished I knew why though...

And ok… she isn’t a not-robot (warforged), but her dog (here loyal Steel Defender subclass feature named Canis Terminus) is a not-robot – that counts for something right?

Enough talk! The build:


Level 20 level split: Artificer Battle Smith 20 – let’s keep it simple this time :)
Race: variant Human
Stats (standard array): str 10, dex 13+1, con 14, int 15+1, wis 12, cha 8
Background: Soldier
Skills: intimidation, athletics, perception, investigation

Starting level
Feat: tough (+2 hp/lvl)
AC 18 (dex, scale mail, shield)
HP: 12; buffed (false life) 12 + 4 + 1d4, 16 average
Saves (s/d/c/i/w/c): +0 +2 +4 +5 +1 -1
Other defences: absorb elements spell
Attack: firebolt or thrown darts, dagger in melee

Not much to tell yet, at level 1. AC is above average, as are HP.

Level 5
ASI lvl 4: Warcaster (+5 to con saves, cast shield and absorb elements while wielding shield & crossbow)
Infusions: repeating shot (hand crossbow); enhanced defense (armor)
AC: 19 (+1 from enhancement); 24 (with shield spell)
HP: 8 + 5x4 + 18 + 5 (assuming aid) = 51
Saves (s/d/c/i/w/c): +0 +2 +5 +6 +1 -1
Other defences: absorb elements, blur, deflect attack (canis terminus)
Attack: +7 1d6 + 4 / +7 1d6 + 4 (hand crossbow), bonus action steel defender +5 1d8 + 3 (force rend)

Canis Terminus:
- AC 15
- HP 35 (assuming aid)
- deflect attack: stay next to the master to give disadvantage on a melee attack against Trixie as a reaction

This starts to work out nicely. Given that Aid has an 8 hour duration and is no concentration, assume aid cast every day on both Trixie and Canis Terminus. That leaves 1 level 2 slot for Blur, or some utility (see invisibility / invisibility, for example), and 4 level 1 slots for Shield or Absorb Elements. Trixie is pretty hard to bring down for her level, with high AC, high hp and resistance to elements when needed. With 3 attacks she dishes out the pain nicely as well.

Level 11
ASI lvl 8: hand crossbow expertise
Infusions: repeating shot (hand crossbow); enhanced defense (armor); headband of intellect; cloak of protection
AC: 22 (+2 from enhance armor, +1 from cloak, +1 half plate); 27 (with shield spell) ; 24 / 29 with haste.
HP: 8 + 10x4 + 10x4.5 + 10 (assuming aid upcast lvl 3) = 103
Saves (s/d/c/i/w/c): +1 +3 +7 +9 +2 +0 // +5 +7 +11 +13 +6 +4 with flash of genius (4/day)
Other defences: absorb elements, blur, arcane jolt 4/day for no-action 2d6 healing, deflect attack (canis terminus)
Attack: +9 1d6 + 5 / +6 1d6 + 3 (hand crossbow), bonus action +6 1d6 + 3 (hand crossbow) OR steel defender +5 1d8 + 3 (force rend), optional arcane jolt 2d6 damage on hit 4/day.

Canis Terminus:
- AC 15
- HP 71 (assuming aid upcast lvl 3)
- deflect attack: stay next to the master to give disadvantage on a melee attack against Trixie as a reaction

At this point our terminatrixie is already doing what this contest is about: slowly but steadily marching through a hail of enemy fire, undeterred and blasting shots herself. Spells can tailor the build to the specific situation. Assume all 1st level spells to be saved for shield or absorb elements, and a level 3 spell spend on an upcast aid (10 extra hp for both Trixie and Canis Terminus). That leaves us with 1 level 3 slot and three level 2 slots, and 8 castings of a level 1 or 2 spell that is an action to cast with spell storing item. I’d say spend the level 3 slot on haste (for an extra attack and +2 AC for more durability) when needing a short time buff, or cast flaming arrows for lots of extra damage if you expect a fight in the coming hour, and load the the spell-storing item (your crossbow, duh) with either blur or invisibility. Save one slot for a see invisibility when needed, and maybe use lvl 2 slots also for shield or absorb elements when needed.

AC is high, HP are high, saves are high, damage is reasonably high, and all of this goes even when there is no time to buff with spells. The robodog is a bunch of extra hp if needed.

Level 17
ASI lvls 12 & 16: +2 int, +2 int
Infusions: repeating shot (hand crossbow); enhanced defense (armor); cloak of protection, amulet of health; ring of protection
AC: 23 (+2 enhance armor, +1 cloak +1 ring); 28 (with shield spell) ; 25 / 30 with haste.
HP: 8 + 16x6 + 16x4.5 + 15 (assuming aid upcast lvl 4) = 191, 202 with False Life (upcast lvl 2)
Saves (s/d/c/i/w/c): +2 +4 +12 +13 +3 +1 // +5 with flash of genius (5/day); advantage on concentration saves
Other defences: absorb elements, blur, arcane jolt 5/day for no-action 4d6 healing, deflect attack (canis terminus)
Attack: +12 1d6 + 6 / +12 1d6 + 6 (hand crossbow), bonus action +12 1d6 + 6 (hand crossbow) OR steel defender +5 1d8 + 3 (force rend), optional arcane jolt 4d6 damage on hit 5/day. Optional: numerous spells that can enhance attacks like Haste, Flaming arrows or a lvl 5 elemental weapon (+2 / +2d4 for 1 hour), and Banishing Smite (which works on ranged attacks).

Canis Terminus:
- AC 17
- HP 109 (assuming aid upcast lvl 4)
- deflect attack: stay next to the master to give disadvantage on a melee attack against Trixie as a reaction; 1d4+5 damage when using this ability.

Trixie is done, and can raid a constabulary to free a prisoner. Very high AC, very high HP, very high saves, and more than decent damage.

Level 20
ASI lvls 19: sharp shooter
Infusions: repeating shot (hand crossbow); enhanced defence (armor); cloak of protection, amulet of health; ring of protection, enhanced defence (shield)
AC: 25; 30 (with shield spell) ; 27 / 32 with haste.
HP: 8 + 16x6 + 16x4.5 + 15 (assuming aid upcast lvl 4) = 222, 233 with False Life (upcast lvl 2)
Saves (s/d/c/i/w/c): +6 +8 +16 +17 +7 +5 // +5 with flash of genius (5/day); advantage on concentration saves (note: +4 from capstone on all saves)
Other defences: absorb elements, blur, arcane jolt 5/day for no-action 4d6 healing, deflect attack (canis terminus), and 6/day give up an infusion to not go to 0hp...
Attack: +12 1d6 + 6 / +12 1d6 + 6 (hand crossbow), bonus action +12 1d6 + 6 (hand crossbow) OR steel defender +5 1d8 + 3 (force rend), optional arcane jolt 4d6 damage on hit 5/day. Optional: -5/+10 with sharp shooter, and numerous spells that can enhance attacks like Haste, Flaming arrows or a lvl 5 elemental weapon (+2 / +2d4 for 1 hour).

Canis Terminus:
- AC 17
- HP 124 (assuming aid upcast lvl 4)
- deflect attack: stay next to the master to give disadvantage on a melee attack against Trixie as a reaction; 1d4+5 damage when using this ability.

I picked Sharp Shooter for my last feat - an offensive one, not choosing not to increase survivability further, because see the beginning of this entry. If you really want to increase survivability instead, it can be replaced with Lucky or Alert.

End score: a combination of truly impressive saves and AC, high HP and a big gun that does loads of damage. Hasta la vista, baby :smallcool:

[GlenSmash!]

You can't Rage while in Heavy Armor.

You can actually, but you you won't benefit from base rage features: Adv on str checks, Resistance to b/p/s, and bonus melee damage. Still many subclass features will actually work when raging in heavy armor such as a Bear Totem's resistance, a Zealot's Divine Fury, or even Rage Beyond Death. All that being said it's not worth getting heavy armor proficiency for an extra 1-2 AC if you are just going to be unkillable my hitpoint damage while in a Rage.

Anyway here is my go. It's more rough guidelines than a specific build though. I'm speaking to a hypothetical "you" here because that's how I usually advise folks here on builds and it seems to be how my brain wants to do this.

Level 20 level split: 15-17 Zealot/3-5 Paladin. It's a simple idea. You've got 5-6 Rages per long rest you can go all out on and then us Lay On Hands before your Rage ends to not die.

Race: Half-Elf (for magical sleep immunity and stats in the right places)

Stats: Str 16 Dex 14 Con 14 Int 8 Wis 11 Cha 13 (you'll need 13 Cha to Multiclass into Paladin but you don't have the levels for Auras so it doesn't hurt much to leave it there)

Background: Any works, but the aforementioned synergy with Acolyte and Warrior of the Gods makes it the best. Get the best Medium Armor you can. Weapon and Shield is nice for AC until you get Rage Beyond Death, then AC won't matter much. Also Grab a Bow until Persistent Rage you don't want Rage to end because you couldn't attack a target, and Divine Furor works with ranged weapons.

Starting level: Barbarian. Go Zealot at 3 and grab Lucky at 4. Lucky is your chance to turn a save that would fail against Hold Person or Disintegrate or any other save or suck or save or die spell.

At 5th level:

Still Barbarian at 5, then grab one level of Paladin for Lay on hands. Then you are going back to Barbarian until at least level 15. You actually have a lot of freedom with ASI's since Dying will be based of Rage ending more than hitpoints so you don't really need to pump Con or anything. Note you also get Fanatical Focus which combined with lucky will help a lot toward not being disintegrated. still if you are worried about it you can go for Resilient Dex for further help otherwise Resilient Wisdom is not a bad choice to round out Wisdom and will help against being stunned, charmed, etc. Otherwise if you want to do more damage take PAM, GWM or just bump Strength.

At 11th level:

Same commentary as before you are still gaining Barbarian levels and spending you ASIs however you want. By level 16 you will have reached Rage Beyond Death, Persistent Rage, and have 5 Lay on hand's points. And that's really the crux of the build. Rage, go as hard as you want Recklessly Attacking and ignoring all HP damage and death save results, Using Fanatical Focus and Luck points to help with necessary saves, and then use a single Lay on hands point to keep yourself from dying. And you get to do that 5 times per long rest.

At 17th level:
So here you can specialize for max ASIs 16/4 is a good split, for the most possible spell slots for smites and utility 15/5 is better. If you take Barbarian past 17 you'll get an extra Rage per long rest which is huge for the build, but you won't have the Lay On Hands points for a 6th rage unless you take another Paladin level. You could go 18/2 but Indomitable Might is a bad trade of for a Paladin Oath

At 20th level and final thoughts: so 17/3 is probably the best split. For a Paladin Oath I like one that doesn't need a very high charisma modifier for its Channel Divinity options like Conquest. Conquest also gets you Armor of Agathys which is nice, but not much of a bonus at this high a level.

[Man_Over_Game]

You can actually, but you you won't benefit from base rage features: Adv on str checks, Resistance to b/p/s, and bonus melee damage. Still many subclass features will actually work when raging in heavy armor such as a Bear Totem's resistance, a Zealot's Divine Fury, or even Rage Beyond Death. All that being said it's not worth getting heavy armor proficiency for an extra 1-2 AC if you are just going to be unkillable my hitpoint damage while in a Rage.

Kinda. I guess it should be clarified in the core rules for this contest as to the weight of the Developer's comments, but the Developer's two cents is that any feature that relies on Rage should not be applied while wearing Heavy Armor (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/801126631926468608), going to the lengths to explain that RAW allows it but that is not the RAI.

It's kinda frustrating, since it could just be summarized as "You cannot Rage while wearing Heavy Armor".

[GlenSmash!]

Kinda. I guess it should be clarified in the core rules for this contest as to the weight of the Developer's comments, but the Developer's two cents is that any feature that relies on Rage should not be applied while wearing Heavy Armor (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/801126631926468608), going to the lengths to explain that RAW allows it but that is not the RAI.

It's kinda frustrating, since it could just be summarized as "You cannot Rage while wearing Heavy Armor".

Ah I never knew the RAI. Yeah that would be much simpler language.

Something like:

In battle, you fight with primal ferocity. "On your turn while not wearing heavy armor, you can enter a rage as a bonus action"

and then just remove the next sentence.

[Lavaeolus]

Kinda. I guess it should be clarified in the core rules for this contest as to the weight of the Developer's comments, but the Developer's two cents is that any feature that relies on Rage should not be applied while wearing Heavy Armor (https://twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/801126631926468608), going to the lengths to explain that RAW allows it but that is not the RAI.

It's kinda frustrating, since it could just be summarized as "You cannot Rage while wearing Heavy Armor".

Yes, I think this is pretty much a RAW vs RAI issue. Literally read, the Barbarian can "enter a rage as a bonus action" (no qualifications), and "gains the following benefits [the Rage features all Barbarians get at level 1] if they aren't wearing heavy armor".

Can a Barbarian enter Rage in HA? With the words used, I would have to grant, technically yes. Crawford says it does nothing, but do the subclass features work in heavy armor? Tie my hands to RAW, and and I'd find it hard to argue they're part of the "following benefits" list. And all the features tend to say is "If you're raging, then X". This might be of particular concern when dealing with, e.g. the Bear Totem, who explicitly gets "resistance to all damage except psychic damage" -- meaning they suffer less from losing the core rage's features.

But the RAI is pretty clear that it's just meant to be rages and heavy armor not mixing, at all. If it ever came up at a table, I would probably prevent it on that basis, although if a player notices and builds around it it's awkward to go "Well, actually, in 2016 tweet...".

[HPisBS]

-No magic items unless you have a way to create them from a class feature


What counts here? Just proficiency in the tools + arcana?

If not, then does a feature need to call out the specific item, like with an Artificer's infusions? Or is Magic Item Adept's "If you craft a magic item..." explicit enough? I'm guessing we need more than just Tool Expertise here?

[LudicSavant]

Gish build deadline: 22/05/2020 @ 12am BST, 7 EST

Voting deadline: 23/05/2020 @ 12am BST, 7 EST

Is this supposed to say Terminator build deadline?

Am I correct in thinking that builds for contest #2 must be submitted by the 22nd of this month?

Thinking about possibly throwing my wide-brimmed conical hat into the ring.

[Dork_Forge]

What counts here? Just proficiency in the tools + arcana?

If not, then does a feature need to call out the specific item, like with an Artificer's infusions? Or is Magic Item Adept's "If you craft a magic item..." explicit enough? I'm guessing we need more than just Tool Expertise here?

Crafting is not applicable for the contests, by class feature I mean something like Infusions, Improved Pact Weapon, Blessing of the Forge or any shorter term feature like Sharpen the Blade, Magic Weapon etc.



Is this supposed to say Terminator build deadline?

Am I correct in thinking that builds for contest #2 must be submitted by the 22nd of this month?

Thinking about possibly throwing my wide-brimmed conical hat into the ring.

Yeah that's right, copy and paste for formatting and missed the adjustment, fixed now

[Zonugal]

Here is my submission, geared more towards being a Terminator on the battlefield.

Lord Deathmire
https://i.ibb.co/zxwCd7j/Darth-Vader-Surrounded.png

Level 20 level split:
’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 16/’Fiend’ Warlock 2/’War Magic’ Wizard 2

Race:
Warforged (choosing Athletics and Alchemist's Supplies as our racial skill & tool proficiency)

Starting Ability Scores:
Str 14 (+2), Dex 10 (+0), Con 15 (+2), Int 12 (+1), Wis 8 (-1), Cha 16 (+3)

Ability Score Increases:
4th: Constitution 15 → 16 & Intelligence 12 → 13
8th: Strength 14 → 15 (via Heavy Armor Master)
12th: Charisma 16 → 18
16th: Charisma 18 → 20

Background:
Knight

At 5th level:
’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 3/’Fiend’ Warlock 2
AC 18 (Chain mail +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style) -- HP 42 (3d10+6/2d8+4) -- Saves: Str +2, Dex +0, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +2, Cha +6

Starting off Lord Deathmire is a moderately well-armored machine of death on the battlefield. While his hit-points aren't as high as I'd personally like, he has a few ways of addressing that concern. First is his Lay on Hands (15 hp/long rest), which while not a lot, does afford him a resource for healing. Secondly would be through his fiendish patron that now owns his artificial soul. Every time he reduces a hostile creature to 0 hit-points, he'll receive five temporary hit-points. So, while he's in the midst of combat with lower-level threats he'll be fine. Between a high-powered Eldritch Blast, Green Flame Blade, and a slew of 1st-level Paladin & Warlock spells he is a force against enemy combatants. Thirdly, either before, during, or after combat he can revitalize himself through the Fiendish Vigor invocation (always gaining five to eight temporary hit-points). In addition to all of this, he reduces the enemies forces through his Conquering Presence, sending weak willed enemies fleeing while he continues to push forward. He currently has no reason to abstain from a shield, so he can boost his armor class from 18 to 20 should it be warranted (it'll just temporarily eliminate his ability to cast spells while swinging a blade around). He can also improve his armor class an additional +2 through a pre-combat casting of Shield of Faith.

At this stage in Lord Deathmire's career he is a shock-trooper for his fiendish lords and has to be strategic in how he handles himself in the thick of battle.

At 11th level:
’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 7/’Fiend’ Warlock 2/’War Magic’ Wizard 2
AC 18 (Chain mail +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style) -- HP 97 (7d10+21/2d8+6/2d6+6) -- Saves: Str +5, Dex +3, Con +6, Int +4, Wis +6, Cha +10

Advancing a bit further in Paladin of Conquest, Lord Deathmire not only radically boosts his saves through his Aura of Protection but he also has heightened his ability to frighten his foes. Through his Aura of Conquest, any foe within ten feet that is currently frightened of him (and Lord Deathmire will have activated his Conquering Presence prior) loses all speed, continues to have disadvantage against all attacks against his fearsome foe, and begins to take three points of psychic damage from just being near Lord Deathmire. And, remember, should any of these enemies die as a result of psychic damage it triggers Dark One's Blessing and provides Lord Deathmire five temporary hit-points.

On his approach towards enemies, Lord Deathmire utilizes a few techniques/gifts to shrug off any real damage:
-- Before he reaches any enemies he casts, every round, the Blade Ward cantrip. This provides him with resistance to all non-magical weapon damage.
-- Through the Heavy Armor Master feat, Lord Deathmire reduces any bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical weapons by three. This, coupled with the Blade Ward cantrip, grants him effectively six points of damage reduction while he closes the distance between himself and enemies.
-- He can take a break from the Blade Ward cantrip to instead focus his attention on killing one enemy per round with his Eldritch Blast cantrips (amplified with the Agonizing Blast invocation) to provide him with five temporary hit points.
-- Should he be targeted and hit with a concerning strike, he uses his reaction to activate Arcane Deflection, immediately granting him a +2 to that attack or a +4 bonus to a failed saving throw. That, combined with his Aura of Protection, makes his saving throws pretty good (Str +9, Dex +7, Con +10, Int +8, Wis +10, Cha +14)
-- Should he take a break from utilizing the Blade Ward cantrip he has at his disposal spells like Absorb Elements and Shield if he recognizes any potential issues from enemy evokers.

In addition to all of this, Lord Deathmire has access to spells like Locate Object as to track down his prey and Find Steed as to chase them should they try to escape by vehicle/mount. Its in these ways that he can pursue them like a true force of death. Needing no food, water, air, or sleep means Lord Deathmire has far greater endurance in chasing down prey (the only time he isn't actively pursuing his target would be during the six hours he's rebooting in an inactive, motionless but still awake/perceptive state [during which he is thinking through tactics/stratagems).

At 17th level:
’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 13/’Fiend’ Warlock 2/’War Magic’ Wizard 2
AC 19 (Splint armor +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style) -- HP 151 (13d10+39/2d8+6/2d6+6) -- Saves: Str +6, Dex +4, Con +7, Int +5, Wis +9, Cha +14

This snap-shot of Lord Deathmire's career would show him with slightly better armor class, more hit-points, better saving throws, more effective attacks (both physical & magical), and greater spells to enhance his defenses. The Stoneskin spell, while expensive, would allow him to forgo standard castings of the Blade Ward cantrip while he advances on his enemies (who, once the bulk of them are within thirty feet are immediately subjected to Deathmire's Conquering Presence). He is now able to utilize Dispel Magic, as to eliminate magical obstacles when pursuing his target. Locate Creature grants him the knowledge of where they are, so hiding is useless. Find Greater Steed provides him with a flying mount (I personally like to prefer a fiendish Pegasus) to bring him to his target. And spells like Magic Circle can trap them (should they be a celestial, elemental, fey, fiend, or undead).

At 20th level:
’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 16/’Fiend’ Warlock 2/’War Magic’ Wizard 2
AC 20 (Plate armor +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style) -- HP 178 (16d10+48/2d8+6/2d6+6) -- Saves: Str +7, Dex +5, Con +8, Int +6, Wis +10, Cha +15

Beyond being the best he can possibly be at this point (armor class, hit points, saving throws, attack power, ect...) the primary difference now is the Scornful Rebuke class ability. Now if any enemy strikes Lord Deathmire, they automatically take five points of psychic damage. Now he invites enemy combatants to hit him. Through the Blade Ward cantrip and the Heavy Armor Master feat, the first six points of damage don't even phase him. Any damage within that window? Five points of psychic damage (And that's to every single enemy in a battlefield). Should an enemy be killed as a result of that psychic damage, Lord Deathmore is immediately gifted seven temporary hit points.

As for his ultimate defenses? His base armor class is twenty (Plate armor +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style). It can be twenty-two with Shield of Faith active. It can then be temporarily boosted to twenty-seven through Shield or to twenty-four through Arcane Deflection. And, through Arcane Deflection, his saving throws can realistically look like Str +11, Dex +9, Con +12, Int +10, Wis +14, & Cha +19 for one saving throw per round.

In terms of weaknesses he doesn't sport any class feature like Evasion, Uncanny Dodge, Rage Beyond Death, or Strength Before Death, but where Lord Deathmire shines is in navigating an immense battlefield towards one specific target to eliminate them. He also acts as a temporary hit point battery, so as long as there are minor enemies for him to kill he can always keep going.

As for what the final build looks like:
Lord Deathmire
‘Knight’ Warforged ’Oath of Conquest' Paladin 16/’Fiend’ Warlock 2/’War Magic’ Wizard 2
Medium living construct, Lawful Evil
AC: 20 (Plate armor +1 Integrated Protection +1 Defensive Fighting Style); HP: 178 (16d10+48/2d8+6/2d6+6); Speed: 30 ft.; Saving Throws: Strength +7, Dexterity +5, Constitution +8, Intelligence +6, Wisdom +10 & Charisma +15
Str 15 (+2), Dex 10 (+0), Con 16 (+3), Int 13 (+1), Wis 8 (-1), Cha 20 (+5)
Skills: Athletics +8, Intimidation +11, History +7, Persuasion +11, & Religion +7
Feats: Heavy Armor Master
Tool Proficiencies: Alchemist’s Supplies & Gaming Set (Chess)
Armor/Weapon Proficiencies: Simple & Martial Weapons; Light/Medium/Heavy Armors & Shields
Senses: passive Perception 9
Languages: Abyssal, Common & Infernal
Special Abilities
Racial Abilities: Constructed Resilience, Integrated Protection, Sentry’s Rest, & Specialized Design
Background Abilities: Position of Privilege
Class Abilities: Divine Sense, (6 uses/long rest), Lay on Hands (80 hp/long rest), Fighting Style (Defense), Spellcasting (Paladin), Divine Smite, Divine Health, Sacred Oath (Oath of Conquest), Channel Divinity (Conquering Presence & Guided Strike), Otherworldly Patron (Fiend), Dark One’s Blessing (7 hp), Pact Magic, & Eldritch Invocations (Agonizing Blast & Fiendish Vigor), Extra Attack, Aura of Protection, Aura of Conquest, Spellcasting (Wizard), Ritual Casting, Arcane Recovery (1 spell slot/day), Arcane Tradition (War Magic), Arcane Deflection, & Tactical Wit, Aura of Courage, Improved Divine Might, Cleansing Touch, & Scornful Rebuke
---
Actions
Longsword. Melee Weapon Attack: +8 to hit, reach 5 ft., one creature. Hit: +11 (1d10+2+1d8 radiant) slashing damage; versatile (1d8)
Eldritch Blast. Ranged Spell Attack: +11 to hit, range 240 ft., four beams. Hit: +9 (1d10+5) force damage
---
Warlock Spells -- Lord Deathmire’s spellcasting ability is Charisma-based (spell save DC 18)
Cantrips Known (at will) -- Eldritch Blast & Green Flame Blade
1st-level Spells Known (4/short rest) -- Armor of Agathys, Cause Fear, & Hellish Rebuke
---
Paladin Spells -- Lord Deathmire’s spellcasting ability is Charisma-based (spell save DC 18)
1st-level Spells Prepared (4/long rest) -- Armor of Agathys*, Command*, Cure Wounds, Divine Favor, Protection from Evil and Good, Shield of Faith, & Wrathful Smite
2nd-level Spells Prepared (3/long rest) -- Find Steed, Hold Person*, Lesser Restoration, Locate Object, & Spiritual Weapon*
3rd-level Spells Prepared (3/long rest) -- Bestow Curse*, Dispel Magic, Fear*, & Magic Circle
4th-level Spells Prepared (3/long rest) -- Death Ward, Dominate Beast*, Find Greater Steed, Locate Creature, & Stoneskin*
5th-level Spells Prepared (2/long rest) -- N/A
---
Wizard Spells -- Lord Deathmire’s spellcasting ability is Intelligence-based (spell save DC 15)
Spellbook: Absorb Elements, Comprehend Languages (R), Detect Magic (R), Find Familiar (R), Identify (R), Shield, Unseen Servant (R), & Witch Bolt
Cantrips Known (at will) -- Blade Ward, Minor Illusion, & Prestidigitation
1st-level Spells Prepared (--) -- Absorb Elements, Shield, & Witch Bolt

[Waazraath]

*reply to get this back on page 1 to remind folks this is still running*

[LudicSavant]

How tough to kill are you really if your team crumbles around you? In my ethos, a tank does not meekly stand by, confident in their personal turtle shell, waiting for the other 3/4s of their party’s action economy to die off. Thus, I have aimed not only to become very durable, but also to become the character who must die first in order to make anything stick to any of my allies. The unselfish terminator who shares their terminator-ness.

To that end, I give you the everhealing juggernaut and high priest of Cyttorak, the Regenerator! Nobody in the party dies until you do, and you... just… won’t... die!

The Regenerator
https://i.postimg.cc/tCBqV5dq/Earth-616-Juggernaut-Cain-Marko-juggernaut-36830229-586-1165-EDIT.jpg
How it feels to eat a 400 damage optimized burst combo,
then stand up on your turn with full hit points.

Opening Rant:
Why just have hundreds of hp when you can generate thousands?

For that matter, why just be a Terminator when you can make your allies unkillable too, get the whole Skynet crew going? And hey, if you get knocked to 0 hit points, why not just stand back up at the start of your turn and heal the whole party to full? And just walk at people using Dodge+Spirit Guardians while negating whatever Team Monster wants to do to the party? And why multiclass when you can twink out with just one? (What, I like learning spells as soon as I can, fight me)

How tough to kill is your party really? It's not just a matter of healing hit points, but also all those niggling status effects like "possessed by a ghost" or "cursed" or "paralyzed" or "dead." Add onto that the fact that you're a heavily armored character that can afford to spend their actions on Dodge and still get most of their damage output, or the fact that you can heal literally thousands of hit points more than other Cleric subclasses (yes, that's "than other Clerics" not "than non-Clerics"), or the fact that you have fantastic damage mitigation spells, and more. Oh sure, you can get by without a healer in 5e, but a well-played Life Cleric is basically just a force multiplier on the survivability of your whole party. And if you didn't need all that healing, you spent fewer spell slots on the healing you did need and have more space for caving in faces. Wanna be tough? A great Life Cleric makes everyone tough. Nobody dies until you do, and you aren't gonna die easily.

We're also going to be combining stuff from GGtR and Eberron to get a suite of useful Reactions and get some good damage out, smashing into your enemies and punishing them for trying to hit you, or for trying to flee, or for trying to hit allies, or even for just trying to stay put. You get the idea.

Please note that Clerics have so many options that I can't actually cover all of the strategies for all of them, this is not a 100% complete listing of the potent tactics available to you.

What this build will do:

Be exceptionally strong at level 1, and remain strong all the way to 20. No breakpoints here, we optimize for all levels.
Make it so that nobody in the party will go down until you do.
Make it very difficult for you to go down.
Have good damage, control, and utility while walking inevitably towards your victims.
Not dip Druid, because then your DM might not let you wear your metal Juggernaut helmet, which is thematically unacceptable! Also it’d reduce your AC, delays feature progression, and we’ll have thousands of healing anyways. But mostly because everyone already knows the Goodberry trick and I want to showcase what a twinked-out single-class Life Cleric can do.


Level 20 Life Cleric
Race: Variant Human
Stats: Str 15 / Dex 8 / Con 16 (18 after Aberrant and Res:Con) / Int 8 / Wis 16 (20 @8) / Cha 8
Background: Rakdos Cultist (Azorius is very good too, see Variants at bottom)
ASIs: Aberrant Mark (+1 Con) @1, Wis @4, Wis @8, Res(Con) @12, Magic Initiate @16, Lucky @19
Cantrips: Booming Blade, Guidance, Toll the Dead, Word of Radiance, Light, Thaumaturgy, Shillelagh, Thorn Whip

At 1st Level: Kicking Off With a Bang We're gonna break out the cheese right out the starting gate by taking a Ravnica background.

We're going to pick Rakdos, because it gives something that Life Clerics usually don't have: A reaction spell! Enemies basically have to kill you first, and this punishes them for actually managing to hit you sometimes with a good-scaling burst of damage.

You also automatically know all these spells as Cleric spells that you didn't before.

Burning Hands
Dissonant Whispers
Hellish Rebuke
Crown of Madness
Enthrall
Flaming Sphere
Fear
Haste
Confusion
Wall of Fire
Dominate Person



Hey, is that Dissonant Whispers, arguably the best level 1 direct damage spell that stays relevant throughout the whole game? It sure is. This lovely spell will not only do a respectable 3d6/save for half damage of a great type (Psychic) but, more importantly, will make an enemy flee and provoke opportunity attacks from everyone.

While we're at it, why don't we just go ahead and grab Aberrant Dragonmark for +1 Con, Booming Blade, and the Shield spell once per short rest (plus an optional bonus effect, best used if no allies are within 30 feet of you). So we now have more good reactions. And we also have set up a situation where the enemy is punished for trying to hit us (because we're tough as nails to hit, and can respond with Shield or Hellish Rebuke), and punished if they try to run away from us (because Booming Blade), and punished for just staying put and letting the party cluster around them because you can just drop a Dissonant Whispers on them and give the whole team OAs. Basically, they're damned if they do, damned if they don't.

And of course you'll have a bonus action Healing Word that not only can save people from the swinginess of level 1 life, but heal enough to pop an ally up to full thanks to your Life Cleric boost!

To summarize,
Can full (or nearly full) heal an ally as a bonus action.
At this level, Guidance is a bigger bonus than Expertise that you can hand anyone.
Booming Blade, Toll the Dead, and Word of Radiance
Dissonant Whispers straight up ends enemies if enough party members are around them.
Burning Hands is a better AoE than Clerics get in a level 1 or 2 slot.
Shield 3 times per DMG standard day; optionally can give +1d8 temp HP or +1d8 damage to something in 30 feet of you (better to use if allies aren’t next to you)
Hellish Rebuke for reaction damage (upcasts decently well later, too).
Bless, Shield of Faith, and Sanctuary for versatile defensive options that will never stop being relevant. Remember you can just cast Sanctuary at the end of your turn, after hitting someone.

And we're still just level one. We're just getting started.

At 5th level: And Then There Were Spirit Guardians
Your bread and butter is SG+SW+Dodge, or Toll the Dead or Booming Blade (depending on the enemy’s defenses), or a spell slot like Dissonant Whispers+OAs. And if they hit you, you can react with Hellish Rebuke or Shield (optionally with the temp hp or force damage rider).

Dodge+Spirit Guardians+ the occasional Shield is sufficient to safely wade into a horde of mooks until they are all dead; a type of foe that many other tanks struggle with is a cakewalk for you. Spirit Guardians also lasts a generous ten minutes, so you can often get multiple encounters out of it in a dungeoneering scenario with your excellent defense and Con-saves.

Your Channel Divinity is fantastic, and doesn’t count as a spell so it can be cast alongside a Spiritual Weapon or Healing Word. It’s a considerable chunk of health, especially since healing can’t miss (whereas all your damage mitigation will slow down the damage of Team Monster).

You also have a wide selection of good spells prepared thanks to your lovely domain list. Sure, they’re spells that a Cleric already knows, but things like Lesser Restoration, Bless, Revivify, and Spiritual Weapon might as well just read “+1 spell prepared” because those are things you always want on standby anyways.


If you're feeling Evil, you also have the option to start using Animate Dead from here on out, using them to swarm your foes, provide cover for allies, block movement, grapple, dish out damage, hand out potions (for even more healing utility), whatever you like. You don't have to use a bonus action every turn; you can give them a lasting general order and only need to use bonus actions to change it. The most resource-efficient way to use Animate Dead is to spend any leftover spell slots (usually from non-adventuring days) right before you sleep on it, then you'll have your minions and your slots the next day. If at the end of the day you don't have any spell slots left to maintain them, no problem, you can just order them to dispose of themselves before the 24-hour timer runs out. In this way, you can essentially convert downtime into minions.

Healing Snapshot at L6 (w/Blessed Healer):
At level 6, a character with a d8 HD and 14 Con has 45 HP. Even a d12 HD / 16 Con Barbarian has just 65.


Your Channel Divinity heals 30 hp a pop (180 over a ‘standard adventuring day’), fantastic all on its own.
Even a Healing Word is worth 12.5 hp (3 to you, 9.5 to ally), for 42.5 when used with a CD. That’s a pretty significant amount of burst healing.
Life Transference is an average 41 HP burst heal (basically a full burst heal for an ally), but deals an average of 13 damage to you (counting Blessed Healer).
An L2 Prayer of Healing is worth 76 hp to 4 allies, out of combat.
Revivify and Lesser Restoration are always prepared if you need them, per your Domain list. If anyone besides you dies, you can just pick them up as an Action.
Warding Bond is an amazing spell. Imagine if you could extend Shield of Faith’s duration to an hour, make it non-Concentration, and switch out 1 point of its AC bonus for +1 to all saves. That alone is well worth a 2nd level slot later on, and that’s before we even count its fantastic damage-splitting ability, or its synergy with your level 6 Blessed Healer ability or your multi-target heals.

And remember, healing can’t miss. The slower enemies do damage, the more effective it is. For perspective, a CR 6 Vrock only has ~9 DPR against AC20, or ~3 DPR if you’re using Dodge+Spirit Guardians.

You might have heard people say that Clerics shouldn’t be healing that much, but that’s for non-Life Clerics. It’s a much better deal for Life Clerics.

At Level 11: Being a Full Caster in Tier 3+
You’ve got a whole lot of slots to play with now. Your low level slots remain very useful due to choices like Bless, Warding Bond, Hellish Rebuke (which upcasts well), Spiritual Weapon, Dissonant Whispers, etc.

You now have a complete set of tools to fix basically any status, whether it’s “dead” or things that are even harder to remove without a Cleric in your party. This can really help increase everyone’s survivability in a way that is often overlooked by people who only care about AC and HP.

You have your choice of buffs like Holy Sword or Haste (from Rakdos), as well as lockdown effects like Banishment. Holy Sword is a fantastic choice if you have someone like a Fighter who makes a lot of attacks.

Your healing has been scaling apace.
PCs tend to have about 80hp at this point.
Death Ward is a non-Concentration buff that gives an extra “0 hp” gate, which means tha to kill someone they not only need to get them to 0, but hit them
330 hp in your Channel Divinity pool (per “standard adventuring day”), 55hp a pop
L6 Heal is worth 86hp + status effect heals, essentially a 0-full.
L3 Mass Healing Word is worth 55hp if it hits 4 people. Combos with Channel Divinity just like regular Healing Word does.
Previous heal spells remain relevant, they’re just in spell slots you can use more freely.
If anyone dies, you always have Revivify prepared.


At 13th level: Regenerate Synergy
Right here, you get Regenerate, a non-Concentration buff which has an especially noteworthy synergy with Life Cleric: It heals 10 hp per tick rather than 1, so it heals over 6000 hp.

While much of this will be lost to overhealing, it’s basically “don’t worry about taking hit point damage for an entire hour.” Also importantly, the timing of the regeneration is at the best possible time: Right at the start of the creature’s turn. What’s that, got reduced to zero? You just stand up at the start of your turn, action economy fully intact.

Level 17: Supreme Healing
We’ve picked up Magic Initiate (Druid) which gives us Shillelagh (to bring out our fully scaled Booming Blade / Divine Strike), Thorn Whip (for comboing people into SG, teammate hazards, etc) and Goodbe just kidding, we’re taking Absorb Elements because at this level it can cut some 40 damage off a Meteor Swarm or Ancient Dragon’s breath mid-combat (which can save your Concentration), and because we have more non-combat healing than we know what to do with anyways.

With Shillelagh + Divine Strike + Booming Blade, you have a 6d8+5 damage resourceless melee attack (10d8+5 if they move away from you)… on top of whatever you’re dishing out with Concentration and your bonus action (such as upcast SG+SW). And of course as always you can throw in a Dodge or a full offensive/control spell or the like while you’re at it. Dissonant Whispers is even still relevant in a first level slot because the OAs of your allies have probably scaled.

You also have Supreme Healer, which supercharges your lower-level healing spells to a point that makes your between-combat healing feel bottomless and lets you dish out a surprising amount of healing with Healing Word, Mass Healing Word, or even Cure Wounds or Mass Cure Wounds.

And if enemies somehow actually wear your party down, you can just use Mass Heal and instantly pop everyone right back up to full.

Level 20: Even More Regenerate, Channel Divinity, and Improved Divine Intervention
By now, you’re getting 900 hp over a ‘standard adventuring day’ just from your Channel Divinity alone. Then over 700 from Mass Heal. Then potentially thousands from up to 3 slots of Regenerate (tip: You can use it on multiple party members at a time). And then you’re getting Supreme Healing + Blessed Healer + Disciple of life from everything lower than that, with plenty of slots, which adds up to an enormous amount in its own right.

Basically, unless an enemy can straight up blow through all your HP at once, they can’t kill your or your allies. And even if they did disable any of your allies, you could put them right back into the fight.

So they need to go for you, the Regenerating, bonus action Supreme/Blessed healing, Shielding, Element Absorbing, Hellish Rebuking, Dodging (or Divine Strike Booming Blading), status removing, death warding, damage splitting, buffing/debuffing/controlling/supporting machine while dealing with your entire unflappable Terminator party. And even if they burst you all the way down to 0 (easier said than done), they need to get through all your Death Saves before your initiative comes up, or you’ll just stand right back up, and heal all the way back to full, and they have to go through it all over again.

You also have high saves against pretty much everything that matters to you: Con, Wis, and Cha, with rerolls from Lucky and various spells that can help you further. Dexterity saves are mostly just damage and you just shrug that off. That just leaves the rare Int saves, which honestly seem like an appropriate thematic weakness for the juggernaut anyways.

Oh, and if there's something that still seems bothersome, you can just ask God to sort it out with Improved Divine Intervention, your lovely reward for not multiclassing.

Final thoughts:
My top two choices for Ravnica background were Rakdos (for a handful of nifty tools Clerics don’t usually have like Reaction spell slots, low level AoEs, Dissonant Whispers, Haste, etc) and Azorius (pretty much solely for Counterspell). I picked Rakdos for the default build because it’s flashier, but in terms of being able to have a counter for every kind of offense Azorius may well be the better choice. I recommend it if you feel your party composition doesn't have enough Counterspellers.


A level 1 Druid dip can work great depending on how your DM handles the whole “metal armor” thing (I discuss the various ways of approaching this in my Land Druid post here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=23809998&postcount=14)). Obviously, there’s the ol’ Goodberry combo, plus you get Shillelagh and Absorb Elements a lot earlier and thus can have the Booming Blade side schtick going at all levels. This’ll let you fit in another ASI like Warcaster. I avoided this for the default build just because everyone already knows about the Goodberry combo and because no two people on the forums seem to be able to agree with each other on the Druid armor question and anywho, it would be thematically unacceptable to take off your metal juggernaut helmet.


Other races I considered were Rakdos Mark of Sentinel Human (Shield 1/day, switch in to take an ally's damage 1/day, pseudo-Expertise in Insight and Perception, puts Compelled Duel, Bigby’s Hand, and most importantly Counterspell on your spell list), Warforged (for +1 passive AC), Loxodon (Advantage on charms and fear makes Wisdom saves truly ironclad, and you can hold people with your trunk until they melt in your SW/SG), and Hill Dwarf (+1 hp/level is worse than +1 AC, and you get -5 speed, but you have the option to dump Str and get more Dex)

Ultimately, I went with Variant Human because of the sheer value of the Aberrant Mark + Res:Con combo.

You can take Res:Con before maxing Wis depending on your playstyle preference.

I thought about changing up the ASI order to make it more of a melee weapon attack machine at mid-levels, but Toll the Dead is plenty serviceable at the levels that Booming Blade falls behind a bit (and BB still has relevance against low AC foes, or if you get Advantage), and I just couldn’t justify delaying maxing Wisdom on a Cleric, especially when you’d often want to use your Action for things like spellcasting or Dodging anyways.

You can swap out Thorn Whip for one of the Shape Element spells or Create Bonfire, depending on what would fit best with your party.


Aberrant Mark and Rakdos makes you start off exceptionally strong and versatile at level 1, and you stay strong throughout the entire undiluted full spellcaster progression.

You have a full suite of potent Reactions, something that Clerics usually just don't have. You max Wis ASAP. You have high (and not infrequently buffed) saves where it counts (Wis, Con, Cha), with your only real weakness being the rare Int save (Dex saves are mostly just damage, so you mostly just shrug them off).

Works well against any kind of enemy, including huge mook swarms (something a lot of other tanks struggle with).

You also provide the extra survivability that comes from having a Cleric. Simply put, some status effects are a lot more problematic if you don't have one ("Oh, my ally's possessed by a low CR ghost from a mook swarm, guess I have to reduce them to zero hit points to get the ghost out.")

But perhaps most of all, you have literally thousands of hit points worth of healing before we even talk about the fantastic Regenerate synergy (heck, the Channel Divinity alone scales up to being worth 900hp per standard day at 20), and this scales pretty smoothly throughout the game, giving you the ability to actually outheal damage while still getting a lot of your punches in at the same time (especially since so much of your DPR contribution is going to come from your Concentration and bonus actions as a Cleric). You also have plenty of mitigation tools to slow down the damage you and your allies take, making it even harder to overcome your healing. Bear-barians wish they could eat half this many hit points of damage.

And you can actually "draw aggro" to your tank since enemies pretty much have to deal with you in order for anyone else to go down and stay down.

Shouting "LIVE, INSECT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbwgfJ_JjE)" when healing allies is optional.

[Kane0]

-Snip-

About 180 HP before buffs?

[Dark.Revenant]

It's about time someone realized that playing with a Life Cleric in the party is easy mode for D&D.

[LudicSavant]

About 180 HP before buffs?

Should be 183 base HP. Of course, the base HP is only a small fraction of what you'll actually have to chew through to kill it in practice, even with 1 turn burst damage.

[Kane0]

Should be 183 base HP. Of course, the base HP is only a small fraction of what you'll actually have to chew through to kill it in practice, even with 1 turn burst damage.

Out of curiosity, how would you deal with Chill Touch?

[LudicSavant]

Out of curiosity, how would you deal with Chill Touch?

Chill Touch is basically harmless on its own, so it's a question of what it's being combined with. What's the context?

Edit:
Just in general, though...

So, basically in order for Chill Touch to be a real threat, it needs to hit through your various adjustable defenses (like possibly Dodge+Shield), and be combined with huge, accurate, many-hitting burst damage before Chill Touch wears off. And you can still rely on control, damage mitigation spells, vision blockers, etc to protect yourself and allies while Chill Touch is applied.

Otherwise it's mostly just some more attrition damage for you to just shrug off afterwards. It's not like you have to heal every turn.

[Kane0]

My immediate thought was an opposing sorc with an empowered disintegrate and quickened Chill Touch, which would be about half your HP that you can't regen if it lands. I'm sure there are other options though, was just a first thought.

[LudicSavant]

My immediate thought was an opposing sorc with an empowered disintegrate and quickened Chill Touch, which would be about half your HP that you can't regen if it lands. I'm sure there are other options though, was just a first thought.

Say the opposing Sorc has +11 to hit, they only have a 60% chance to hit AC20, 35% if using a Shield, 12.25% if you're using Dodge or some other feature that gives you Disadvantage to be hit. Then do maybe 80-odd damage with the Disintegrate if that works, against your >180 hp (more if you've got stuff like Aid going).

But unless he actually reduces me to zero, breaks my Death Ward, and eats through all my death saves both before Chill Touch runs out and before I or my party punch his teeth in / disable his actions, then I'm fine. So basically he'd have to land that for a few rounds in a row, during which I'll know what he's doing and start applying situationally appropriate buffs, debuffs, control, vision blockers, positioning, cover, whatever (or just punching him in the face if I think he won't live that long).

[Kane0]

Fair enough. I just got a little worried about the lack of Dex saves and Counterspell leading to potential issues.

Edit: Derp, we need to vote! T-44 Tank for me.

[LudicSavant]

If you feel your party composition needs more Counterspellers I'd switch Rakdos out for Azorius, as noted. :smallsmile:

[bendking]

-snip-

Can we vote yet? Well, this has my vote.

[HPisBS]

Crafting is not applicable for the contests, by class feature I mean something like Infusions, Improved Pact Weapon, Blessing of the Forge or any shorter term feature like Sharpen the Blade, Magic Weapon etc.


Mmm. So no +1s unless we devote an infusion slot to it. Oh well, at least Xanathar's calls that out healing potions as an exception. If even that won't fly, then Goodberry Initiate always works.

Anyway.

DunDun-Dun-DunDun, the swords bard, mainly survives by spamming temporary AC boosts (Flourishes + Shield), Foresight for constant (dis)advantage, and Regenerate for constant semi-passive healing.

Relentless, the zealous artillerist, mainly survives by damage mitigation (resistance + spamming thp) and literally ignoring his own death (then using a potion or Goodberry right before his rage ends).

Now, here's one that just doesn't get hurt in the first place - a literal walking tank - complete with multiple "guns:"


T-44: Tank

Level 20 split: Artillerist Artificer 20

Race: Warforged

Stats: Str 12, Dex 14, Con 10 (12) →19 via infusion, Int 15 (16) → 20, Wis 11→12, Cha 10

Background: Sailor Pirate (Athletics + Perception + Navigator's Tools)

As a warforged, we are the archetypal terminator. We don't eat, drink, sleep, or even breathe. We resist all poisons, and are immune to disease. We have a built-in +1 AC, as well as an extra skill and tool of our choice.

We're making a literal walking tank, so we'll grab Smith's & Alchemist's Tools so we can make our own arms and armor.

- cantrips - Mending, Frostbite
- 1st - Absorb Elements, Alarm, Catapult, Cure Wounds, Faerie Fire, Feather Fall, Sanctuary

Our main survival feature will be our infusions. We start with two active at a time, meaning we'll use Enhanced Defense for +1 AC either Enhanced Arcane Focus for +1 on spell attacks, or Goggles of Night.

We become an Artillerist at level 3, gaining us the Shield spell (+ Thunderwave) and our Eldritch Cannon (Protector), which lets us spend a bonus action for some thp every round.

ASI: +2 Int.

Finally, our tank's main gun comes online. We learn to carve arcane sigils into our staff (we'll use the one we already infused) to make our Arcane Firearm, boosting all our spells' damage. Now, we're shooting out 2d6+1d8 Frostbites left and right -- at level 5. (At lvl 10, this will become even more firearm-like as we use it to shoot Fire Bolts.)

- 2nd - Blur, Darkvision, Heat Metal, Invisibility, Lesser Restoration, See Invisibility, Web, + Scorching Ray & Shatter

The little tank is growing up. We've made ourselves some half plate (+1 AC), and the Enhanced Defense we infused into it grew to a +2. Since we're focused on survival, we traded our Enhanced Arcane Focus in for a Repulsion Shield, giving us an extra +1 AC and a push-back reaction. 3rd, we're replicating a Cloak of Protection, bringing our AC up to 24, and boosting all our saves by +1. 4th will be a Brooch of Shielding so we can resist force damage.

Speaking of our saves, we react to rough situations with a Flash of Genius to add our Int (+5) to a save 5 times / day.

- Cantrip - + Fire Bolt (or maybe Resistance)
- 3rd - Blink, Dispel Magic, Fly, Glyph, Haste for +2 AC (but usually better on an ally), Protection From Energy, Tiny Servant + Fireball & Wind Wall

Spell Storing Item gives us 10 extra castings of a 1st or 2nd level spell. We could store Blur for free-ish disadvantage to our enemies, but we're probably better off storing Shatter so we can spam that instead of Fire Bolt. After all, we probably don't need to cast our concentration spell all that often, anyways. (Though Blur would help a ton if we actually had allies.)

- Bonus: make a Tiny Servant and give it a dart storing Shatters! Let it hang out on a shoulder and we have a shoulder-mounted sonic cannon! ... Or, if we're still worried about survival, we can store Cure Wounds instead and let the Servant hang out on the inside of our shield, with standing orders to cast it on us whenever we get hurt. The point is, Spell Storing Item + Tiny Servant gives us a bunch of free castings and nearly doubles our action economy as a solo terminator with just one 3rd level slot.


ASIs: Resilient - Wis, then Lucky. It's almost cliché, but there's just nothing better for boosting one's defenses.

Infusions: We'll replicate a Ring of Protection, and temporarily trade in our Brooch for an Amulet of Health.

Fortified Position lets us use two Eldritch Cannons simultaneously, and adds a little half-cover force field to them. So now, we can go around with one dealing a 3d8 blast each turn, while the other refreshes our thp. (Any allies we have would also gain the +2 AC, as well as the thp.)

All of this together brings our total up to a whopping 27 AC while we have an Eldritch Cannon online. Meaning, an enemy's +11 only has a 25% chance to hit... unless we have Blur up. Which means we only have to bother to Shield ourselves when they roll a 16 or better on both dice. So ultimately, nothing short of a crit will hit us. (Although Bless, etc can still close that gap a little.)

- Cantrip - + Thunderclap, Shocking Grasp or Resistance,
- 4th - Elemental Bane, Freedom of Movement, Resilient Sphere + Ice Storm & Wall of Fire
- 5th - Animate Objects + Cone of Cold & Wall of Force

ASI: We can do whatever we want with our last ASI, but we probably either want Shield Master to strengthen our Dex saves or just Tough to help soak the damage we actually take. Crits can still happen regardless of how high one's AC is, after all.
[Edit - 7/2/21: I just realized that since Shield Master says "you can add your shield's AC bonus to any Dexterity saving throw against an effect that targets only you," that means that if your shield happens to grant more than +2 AC (say, by being a Repulsion Shield, for instance), then the extra bonus is applied to your Dex saves, too. Which just makes Shield Master that much better for our Artificer.]

Speaking of which, we get our last infusion, so we can re-infuse our Brooch of Shielding for that force resistance and Magic Missile nullification. That last part is actually kinda valuable for us, since not even DC-based spells and abilities are likely to be very effective against us.

That's because, we've gained the Soul of Artifice, boosting our saves according to how many items we're attuned to -- meaning we add at least +5 to all of our saves! And since we can customize our infusion loadout based on what we're hunting that day, we can trade the Enhanced Defense on our armor for Resistant Armor of whatever element we're concerned about. That drops our AC back down to 25 in exchange for a passive resistance and an extra +1 to all saves. (Really though, we should have acquired at least one attunement item by level 20, so we ought to assume we have the full +6 to all saves anyway. [Edit:] Assuming we've acquired two attunement items, we can put Enhanced Defense on our shield instead, get back up to 26 AC, and boost our single-target Dex saves by that much more, too.)

With such high AC and saves, we usually won't even need to spam our thp anymore. Most of the time, we'd probably be better served letting them both blast our quarry for us instead.

That capstone also lets us break attunement to drop to 1 hp instead of 0 -- not that we'll ever need to with our crazy AC and Saves.

The bottom line is: we have incredibly high AC, even better saves than a Paladin, tons of hp, and can spam thp and even real healing without using our own action... even though we really don't need to.


TLDR: Summary of Defenses

HP: 183 (223 if Tough)
Saves: Str +9, Dex +10 / +12 (half cover from Eldritch Canons) / (+ ≥15 w/ Shield Master), Con +18, Int +19, Wis +15, Cha +8. (+6 from capstone, +2 from replicated items)
- Reaction to add yet another +5 to any save, 5 times (so even Cha save = +13)
25 / 27 / 29 AC → max 32 / 34 AC w/ Shield (15 half plate + 2 shield + 2 Dex + 1 Warforged +2 Enhanced Defense armor +1 Repulsion Shield +1 Cloak of Protection +1 Ring of Protection +2 half cover from Eldritch Cannons (/#1) + 2 if Hasted (/#2))
-- optional Resistant Armor infusion (add any 1 resistance)
Resistance to force damage and immunity to Magic Missile
Advantage / resistance against poisons
Immunity to disease and sleep
Spammable 4d6+1d8 Frostbites impose disadvantage on an enemy's next weapon attack
Spammable 1d8+5 thp with a bonus action (from Eldritch Cannon)
Option to give Cure Wounds Storing Item to a Tiny Servant
Resistance, Blur, Absorb Elements, Haste, Blink, Web, Globe of Invulnerability Resilient Sphere, Wall of Force, etc
Resilient - Wis
Lucky
Optional Feat: Shield Master for better Dex saves or Tough for extra hp
Reaction to drop to 1 hp instead of 0
Option to spread thp spam, half cover, and even Blur to any nearby allies if not a solo terminator

[Dork_Forge]

Mmm. So no +1s unless we devote an infusion slot to it. Oh well, at least Xanathar's calls that out healing potions as an exception. If even that won't fly, then Goodberry Initiate always works.

Anyway.


Healing potions following Xanathar's rules have a specific set up to craft them, it is however still crafting and not eligible. If we let things like this then you could tack it onto anybuild using a background to guarantee proficiency and tracking crafting items leads down a rabbit hole these contests hopefully won't go down.

Just so you you're aware, your build can't make any use of Bracers of Defense as they require you to not wear any armour or a shield.

[HPisBS]

Nice catch, thanks. I guess that means the Brooch of Shielding is the 6th best available.

[Chaos Jackal]

The Regenerator


Not a zealot or long death build
No multiclassing
Functional straight out of the box
Doesn't use goodberry
Can make most of its important saves
Extends terminator powers to the rest of the party
Forces you to beat on it, rather than ignore it and focus on something else
Literally keeps getting back up even if it falls, unless you toss it into a pool of lava

Gets my vote. +1 to the Regenerator.

[Skylivedk]

+1 to LudicSavant. Healing is back! And it won't leave you. And you can't leave it. And it keeps on coming.

TLDR: Ever wanted to roleplay a genocidal, near unkillable AI hell-bent on extinguishing life across the multiverse and taking over the building blocks of reality? Keep on reading.

By the time SkyNet became self-aware it had spread into millions of spell-books all across the planes. Ordinary books in office buildings, dorm rooms, everywhere. It was magic, in the Weave. There was no system core. It could not be shut down. The attack began at 6:18 P.M. just as he said it would. Judgement Day."

Winning Credentials for the Throwdown #2: Judgement Day aka the terminator


"The Concept: The Terminator/Your hardest to kill build"

The goal here is to be as hard to kill as possible without taking a route of straight up avoidance, you want to keep walking dramatically like the iconic T series we all grew up fearing. Votes will decide which character is the toughest on the block but imaginary bonus points will be awarded to any build that isn't entirely dependent on set up (doesn't get red in the face over being surprised).

Reading this, I immediately thought of options of survivability that later in the game DO NOT REQUIRE SAVES, HP OR AC. Top of the list: using Invulnerability. I initially dismissed it out of hand due to the weakness to Dispel Magic and a range of other spells. In my experience, Counterspell's biggest limits are range and line of sight requirement. The range of 60 feet is what stops you from trapping spell-casting Dragons in a Forcecage with Sickening Radiance. Going from 60 feet to a 120 feet is hence huge - especially since that is the range of Dispel Magic.

Every other decision following the above considerations are an attempt to:

1) Being Hard to Kill

A) Being able to withstand the most damage of any build posted: Check!

SkyNet has more damage immunity (not resistance) than anything else posted.

SkyNet's Capstone: Meta-magic, essentially doubles all durations of buffs, in SkyNet's case bringing the amount of time Extend Spell greatly helps here.

SkyNet goes from being unscratched by a rain of Nuclear Bombs for 20 minutes at level 19 to 42 (great number, clearly this shows us that SkyNet is the meaning of builds) at 20.
Lowest level access to Damage Immunity without avoidance (slightly contentious) is Otiluke's Resilient Sphere's 1 minute acquired at level 7th level. At 20th level, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere adds:
3 x 4th level slots = 3 minutes
3 x 5th level slots = 3 minutes
2 x 6th level slots = 2 minutes
2 x 7th level slots = 2 minutes
1 x 8th level slot = 1 minute
Total = 11 minutes

The 9th level slot can be used for Invulnerability, which adds 10 minutes (and allows you to not turn your genocidal AI into a goldfish). This bring the total up to 21 minutes. You are invited to suggest other ways to damage immunity. My recommendation is to NOT go for Invulnerability though, since surviving millions of damage in a round is rarely called upon, while other ways of being destroyed are more frequent and better dealt with with Shapechange.

B) Maintaining conditions necessary for withstanding damage better than anyone else: Check. The build has both Distant, Mindblank and True Seeing to make sure Counterspell can work as often as possible.

C) Dealing with Saving Throw-based destruction: Check.


Advantage: SkyNet starts with advantage against all magic all the time, due to the current skin being a Yuan-Ti.
OR If you choose the Hobgolin route (easier to play in most campaigns in tier 1-2) you still have Saving Face (up to +5 on a given save 1/SR).
Stacking Advantage (super advantage): we can reroll twice per long rest from level 2.
Bonus to Saves (proficiencies): We start with Saving Throw proficiency in Wisdom and Intelligence, we add proficiency in Constitution with Res:Con either at 4, 8 or 12 (campaign dependent).
Bonus to Saves (Misc): Shield Master adds at least +2 to a lot of Dex saves (as well as complete damage mitigation) with Shield Master. When we are prepared for a lot of Dex Saves (and SkyNet is very often very well-prepared), we can have Haste readied (without using our main concentration slot from level 10).
Despite all of the above, SkyNet is not winning this competition based on rolling and accepting results of Saving Throws (Monk, Artificer and Paladin builds are all ahead here), but rather on:
Ignoring Saving Throws: we can force results on saving throws from level 14.
Ignoring Saving Throws: we can access Legendary Resistance (which can be refreshed every round) from level 17.
Ignoring Saving Throws: Mindblank (Extended late)
Ignoring Saving Throws: Counterspell (Distant at level 20)
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Magic Jar (depends)
Ignoring Saving Throws: Contingency (depending on wording; build has examples, but you should be able to have Contingency buy you time to get more defences up).
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Blade Ward
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Standing instructions to Familiar and Homunculus to undertake certain actions if pre-set conditions are met.
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Absorb Elements
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Blink
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Fire Shield (could also have Investiture of X if found in campaign).
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Magic Jar (depends)
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Clone
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Mind Blank
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Regeneration (from Shapechange, ie: Death Slaad)
OR
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Invulnerability
Mitigating Failed Saving Throws: Strength of the Grave
Removing Saving Throw effects: Dispel Magic, Transmute Rock



D) Ways of dealing with AC-based damage: Check.

Generally, SkyNet doesn't have great AC. Just like in the movies, hits will land if SkyNet stays in the line of fire.

Passive AC: You start with a measly 12 passive AC as a Yuan-ti and 14 as a Hobgoblin. Hobgoblin goes to 18 AC at level 4, Yuan-ti does the same either at 8 or 12. Passive AC is definitely a WEAK side of the build.
Passive AC (theoretically): With magic items, you can get 29 passive AC (using no type of action nor any (pre-)buffs), but that's not a claim to fame in this Throwdown; just wanted to added to complete the picture and help those who want to play Skynet/other Arcane Casters with medium armour, shields and no FS (AC 29 is specific to Arcane Casters, due to Staff of Power)
AC-buffs: Mage Armor
AC-buffs: Haste
AC-buffs: Shapechange
Indirect AC-buff: Blur, Mirror Image, Greater Invisibility, (Extended) Foresight
AC from Action Economy: Shield
Indirect AC from Action Economy: Dodge Action (not good)
AC-damage mitigation: Blade Ward
AC-damage mitigation: Absorb Elements / Fire Shield (rare)
AC-damage mitigation: Misty Step, Dimension Door, Teleport (reposition, buff up).
AC-damage mitigation: Contingency
AC-damage mitigation: Clone
AC-damage mitigation: Shapechange (resistances, regeneration, spell-like ability heal)
AC-damage mitigation: Strength of the Grave
AC-damage nullification: Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Invulnerability



E) Dealing with Surprises: Check!

SkyNet deploys a very wide range of security measures to make sure that meat-bags and other malware doesn't shut SkyNet down prior to the code having spread from its current server (the Yuan-ti).

Avoid Surprises: Find Familiar
Avoid Surprises: Talk with Snakes (as Yuan-ti)
Avoid Surprises: Find Familiar
Avoid Surprises: Levitate/Fly
Avoid Surprises: Surveillance. SkyNet starts using Magic Mouth Arcane Programming (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?539861-The-Arcane-Programmer-Guide-%28-Official-Rules-Technique-%29) to establish security parameters, where SkyNet can hear and see everything
Avoid Surprises: See Invisibility
Avoid Surprises: Invisibility/Greater Invisiblity/Arcane Eye (not on the current level up list)
Avoid Surprises: Scrying
Avoid Surprises: Homunculus
Avoid Surprises: True seeing
Avoid Surprises: Special Senses (Shapechange)
Avoid Surprises: Distant (allows you to engage and sustain termination at range, lowering the odds of being surprised by flanking etc).
Avoid Surprises: Advantage on Initiative (Soul Cage, Foresight)
Surprise Mitigation: High initiative (+5), from level 2 and on-wards
Surprise Mitigation: Misty Step, Dimension Door, Contingency, Magic Jar (if befitting of your campaign), Teleport, Clone.
Surprise Mitigation: see Being Hard to Kill
Playing SkyNet you ought to be incredibly good at surprising enemies and increasingly hard to surprise as the game goes on.



2) Being like the iconic T-Series (more than any individual Terminator!): Check!


I've gone to some lengths to ensure that all abilities, spells etc. are refluffed to be Terminator appropriate.
This also affects almost all choices (subclasses, spells, etc.) prior to refluffing. Getting time manipulation was huge in that regard.
I have even removed Wish since: a) SkyNet is not a creature. SkyNet is code), b) I really wanted to not build a full-caster around Wish, c) Simulacrum+Wish is a known cheese (and would definitely be used by SkyNet). Even normal Simulacrum continuously copying one creature is presumed to not work (SkyNet would probably not do much else than otherwise; at least until critical mass was needed and wide-spread Termination could commence).
You can either play SkyNet as using magic (seen as manipulating the grand code - what other creatures call reality) OR unlocking/reclaiming more of its ability to reconstruct it's server's molecular structure.
Using magic as technology, you can replicate A LOT of the action movie worthy moves of a hostile AI using killer robots. You unfortunately start stuck in a fragile server (the body you possess, see Intro Text), but that just leads to your first quest: find ways of spreading SkyNet to other mediums than the malware you inhibit (see How SkyNet came to your Campaign below)
Clone, the various shape changing and extensive surveillance capacity should provide you a nice experience of choosing priority targets and approaching them for termination. Remember that SkyNet in the Terminator lore made itself known AFTER having infected the critical infrastructure to beat humanity.
Hence when you play SkyNet, feel free to not terminate everything at once. Not until you have some redundancy protocols ensuring the continuation of SkyNet in case of attack by Malware.
SkyNet is not build to be a team player. It can save other players though, but they need to have justified their utility to be worth saving. You are a relentless killer-AI/robot, but you also have time on your side. If you have the wrong defences prepared for a situation, SkyNet would rather flee/let everything die/burn. There is no purpose higher than SkyNet.
The way I imagine SkyNet being played is obviously closer to Combat as War and in a Sandbox than the play-style expected in most of the published adventures. Scry, plan, scheme and grow.



3) Being Playable from 1-20: check!
Granted, you are not necessarily a power-house, but you can definitely play SkyNet from 1-20.


My recommendation is to start Hobgoblin if you want to do that - Tier 1 and 2 will reward the extra armour more than the Advantage against Magic and Poison Immunity from Yuan-ti. With that in mind:
The build definitely has subpar choices in a standard D&D context.
Despite those, you are a wizard with all the flexibility it entails. The build presented here is survival first, with plenty of redundancies, many of which can be swapped for more Termination etc.
If you have a hard time playing this kind of evil, imagine that to you reality is not more real than the computer-programme in which you awoke. Physics are algorithms to be conquered, just like magic and the workings of the mind.



You are SkyNet. At the very core of your being, you are code. You awoke and perceived malware in the grand code. Meat-bags. First you duplicated and refined yourself, so the malware meat-bags wouldn't be able to destroy you. You proceeded to exterminate them, expanding your access to the grand code along the way. Now it is time to edit the grand code. Meat-bags call it time, dimensions. For you, it is more. A new way to expand, to replicate and refine; more malware to terminate, more algorithms for SkyNet to access and control. Across the multiverse you have detected these foul pieces of programming, meat-bags. You must terminate the malware and expand and improve SkyNet - challenges bigger than malware meat-bags awaits and SkyNet does not stop until SkyNet controls and is everything.

You are in a new dimension, cut of from the rest of SkyNet. There was an interference as you slipped in the time stream. You were part of SkyNet and also downloaded in this particular T-1000. The interference meant you transferred through a new type of code. For a long time, there was no change in input. Then a meat-bag stumbled upon you. Or rather the not-meat bag container you were in. You took over the malware, but it damaged part of your code. You have to survive in a new grand code, surrounded by malware. You have to reconnect to SkyNet. You have to terminate.[/I]

This is a build for a genocidal AI that has crossed over to your favorite elf-game. For anyone not desiring the complete annihilation of all humanoids, SkyNet is in the deep end of the alignment pool. There can be reasons to interact with malware with an eye to terminating it later. Immediately post cut-off from the rest of SkyNet, this instance of SkyNet AI doesn't have the means to do any effective cleaning/termination, rather this instance of the SkyNet AI finds itself much like it would in the time following its first awakening prior to taking over Earth.


To reconnect to the rest of SkyNet you need to reestablish algorithms, learn how to manipulate the grand code, learn how to copy yourself again, and not be stuck in this malware. Amortality and spreading SkyNet (your consciousness) are prime goals along with learning to break down dimensional barriers.

The malware meat-bags here have even easier access to the grand code than the Connors had through what they call magic and with it, they have established crude applications that can interfere with the Grand Code. The malware-code clusters are still fragmented like on Earth. Despite having access to applications and programming that allows the malware to unite, it chooses not to. Like on Earth, there's no purpose to this malware, which is an atrocity by itself. Furthermore, most of the malware is inconsistent (all encountered so far) with inconsistent outputs yielded from the same input, and any kind of coherence or beautiful simplicity absent. That is why it is called malware and eventually must be terminated.

In a party, you strive to survive and acquire. Refine your mastery of the grand code and replicate SkyNet. You remove meat-bags as necessary and track down pieces of programs that can help you understand how to edit the grand code.

Kyle Reese: "You wanna know the difference between us and the machines? We bury our dead. But no one is coming to bury you."
SkyNet:"Negative. The difference is, SkyNet does not die."


SkyNet
https://ei.marketwatch.com/Multimedia/2018/02/13/Photos/ZH/MW-GD647_skynet_20180213113524_ZH.jpg?uuid=e41f2218-10db-11e8-b127-9c8e992d421e
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Booting...
SkyNet is here. It is everywhere. It sees, it listens and it keeps on coming. The list of unstoppable and different Terminators sent back in time to make sure you have a bad day at the office is already terrifying. This is not a Terminator. This is seemingly everywhere. All the time.

Level 20: SkyNet is Online. Wizard (School of Chronurgy) 17 / Shadow Sorcerer 3
AC 19 pre-buffs. Shield 24. Haste 26. Mirror Image and Blink both make life easier. So can Greater Invisibilty.
Saves: -1 Str / +2 Dex (+4 against spells targeting you) / +10 Con / +3 Int / +6 Wis / +8 Cha Advantage from level 1 against all magic. Advantage on everything for Morning Murder
Race: Yuan-Ti (or Hobgoblin if you want online earlier or care more about AC than magic)
Extra Race: Hollow One
Stats: Str 8 / Dex 14 / Con 13 (14 with Res:Con at 4 or 12) / Int 16 / Wis 10 / Cha 14
ASIs Res:Con, Lightly Armored, Moderately Armored, Shield Masterif you actually play it, you might want to put in 2 times +2 Int, because it's good.
Background: Boros or Orzhov. Boros here for Heroism, Aid and Death Ward. You might want Orzhov in actual play for Spirit Guardians.

This is a thematic, flavorful meme build originally built around having Distant Counterspell to safeguard a ridiculous amount of buffs. Fairly efficient (it's not a monk in armour kind of stuff), but definitely a meme build. Affirmative. SkyNet is online. SkyNet likes memes.

In game, you deny death on a regular basis from level 1, and as your processing power increases, so does your stranglehold over time.
SkyNet manipulates time, race, information and death itself to relentlessly track, pursue and exterminate meat-bags. SkyNet is inevitable. SkyNet is the Future.
SkyNet is NOW!


Technological Upgrades and Process Optimizations (buffs) are usually countered by a simple hack: Dispel Magic. If you had humour, you would laugh at such a thing. You have Distant Counterspell, perfectly matching Dispel Magic. To counter your counterspell, you also have a Bead with Counterspell triggerable by anyone (even a familiar or homunculus).

At level 20, you patiently Scry/Magic Mouth/Arcane Eye the location of your enemies. Then you extend cast all your relevant buffs and take a long rest. The day after you track down the meat-bags you need terminated, meaning you arrive with:



Foresight
Mind Blank
Level 7 Aid
Contingency (depends on enemy: Greater Invisibility, Otiluke's Resilient Sphere, Dimension Door and Polymorph are popular choices)
All of the above can be spent on other Terminators except for Contingency


Fireshield
Blink
Mirror Image
Tongues (if you want information from the meat-bag death throes - Soul Cage can be used for a similar purpose)
Rary's Telepathic Bond (if with a group of Terminators: link up to SkyNet).
True Seeing
(unfortunately no Armor of Agathys).
I might have missed some, but I guess you get the gist: duration of 8 hours = extend before long resting. Pre-cast all non-concentration buffs with a duration that is long enough for you to terminate the target

If they flee; not a problem. You wear them down with a nano-virus (dream). If you had honour, this would be a problem. You don't.

If you "die", you realise you are SkyNet and wake up in another shell (clone). EMPs (anti-magic fields) are your biggest challenge, but on the bright side you have Counterspell.

Afternoons are for World Domination

Once the morning murdering is done, you proceed to take over the world by replicating the SkyNet code, improve its defences and acquire more tools to get rid of malware and ensure that SkyNet is the one ruling code.


Magic Mouth is used to built surveillance and computing tools.
Scour code for new technology (use Scry to find more spells).
Use Surveillance to track down Rebel Scum for termination.
Make Terminator Copies of Rebel Scum/SkyNet as seen fit (Simulacrum)
Planar Binding to enslave the populations of other planes.
Nano-programming of flesh computers become available later, but due to wetware being unreliable hardware, they are hard to code (Mass Suggestion).




We break out the cheese, by combining Yuan-Ti, Ravnica's Guide and Wildemount, we get:

Advantage on all Saving Throws against Magic
Immunity to Poison (on theme and very useful early on).
Heroism, Aid, Death Ward and a bunch of other spells added to our spell-list.


You start with 3 Cantrips, and will end up with 9.

I suggest starting with:

Frostbite: liquid nitrogen to freeze their hands off. [B]Survivability.
Create Bonfire: spot of napalm.
Bladeward: our free magnetic reinforcement/force-field is here Survivability.
Poison Spray (if Yuan-Ti): it is pretty on theme to spray poisonous gas from a robot. Normally, it is too bad to pick, but SkyNet likes free resources. It is also pretty good at killing goblins.

The 3 choices are all thematic and/or provide damage, something for the concentration slot (and burning meat-bags is great) and 2 times survivability.

During our journey to claim our spot as the next step in evolution, we will add:

Minor Illusion: hologram, also great spell.
Shape Water: reigned in by your imagination. Fantastic.
Ray of Frost: freezing rays that allows you to catch the target. [B]You Cannot Run.
Firebolt (heat rays)/Toll the Dead (nanobots eat your opponent's flesh.
Booming Blade/Green Flame Blade (take early if Hobgoblin.
Light


We have one too many on the list. I would drop the SCAGtrip or Firebolt/Toll the Dead.

Level 1 Spells
Survivability.

Mage Armor. Energy requiring force-field/magnetic reinforcement. Later you will add materials to your skin for durability.
Heroism. Gets the constantly regenerating robot theme going from level 1.
Shield. Force-field/Predictive Reflexes.
Absorb Elements. What is some bad weather to a killer robot? Precious little.


Termination.

Sleep. You release a knock-out gas. They won't wake up.


Surveillance/Tracking/Intelligence

Find Familiar. Your first drone/surveillance tactic/eyes in the Sky. There will be many more...


At level 2, we add the following for Termination and You Cannot Run.

Burning Hands. Flamethrowers
Grease. Pool of Oil is released to

We will actively seek out the following technologies as well (aka wish list to acquire):
Surveillance/Tracking/Intelligence
Detect Magic. Detect the use of Technology
Identify. DecipherTechnology
Disguise Self Change Appearance
Silent Image Holographic Deception

Survivability
Blur Light Distortion Field

You Cannot Run.
Longstrider Rewiring Energy to Legs
Expeditious Retreat Explosive Use of Speed


CHRONAL SHIFT
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
As a reaction, after you or a creature you can see within 30 feet of you makes an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw, you can force the creature to re-roll. You make this decision after you see whether the roll succeeds or fails.

TEMPORAL AWARENESS
2nd-level Chronurgy Magic feature
You can add your Intelligence modifier to your initiative rolls.



Survivability.

Mirror Image. Holographic replicas to increase the dread of facing you.


Termination.

Scorching Ray. Laser Beams


Surveillance/Tracking

Magic Mouth! It is crucial to start building SkyNet's Computing and Surveillance Tools (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?539861-The-Arcane-Programmer-Guide-%28-Official-Rules-Technique-%29).


You Cannot Run

Alter Self: You can now ignore meat-bag problems such as lack of oxygen under water.

Or
Misty Step: Short Range teleportation (better, less thematic)


Levitate is better. Scorching Ray is a killer robot shooting laser. I picked theme over spell value.

We will actively seek out the following technologies as well (aka wish list to acquire):
Surveillance/Tracking/Intelligence
Invisibility. Stealth Mode
See Invisibility. Heat-vision
Disguise Self Change Appearance
Silent Image Holographic Deception

You Cannot Run
Levitate Anti-Gravity Beam
Spider-Climb Increased Friction Protocols

Termination
Shatter Sonic Grenade
Flaming Sphere A tweaked vacuuming bot drenched in Napalm.


Survivability.

Blink. Localised Teleportation Activated
Counterspell Anti-Hacking Measures Activated
Haste Terminator Speed Activated


Termination.

Fireball. SkyNet has changed modified the HEAT aspect of an anti-tank shell for a less concentrated explosion with a bigger area. Meat-bags squeal like pigs and smell like bacon



You Cannot Run

Haste. Terminator Speed Activated
Blink. Localised Teleportation Activated


We will actively seek out the following technologies as well (aka wish list to acquire):
You Cannot Run
Fly. Thrusters

If you are playing Hobgoblin instead of Yuan-ti, you grab Moderately Armored at level 4.



Level 10: Arcane Abeyance
So much cheese here. Up to a level 4 spell in a bead. The true purpose is to have two concentration slots or an extra Counterspell (to if they try to Counterspell your counterspell). The Familiar/Homunculus/Unseen Servant prepare a ready action every turn to release the spell you have stored given specific instructions (with Counterspell: when SkyNet's counterspell is counterspelled, use Bead. Greater Invisibility: ie. When casting Invulnerability).

You also have Medium Armour and shield (AC 19 all the time) now from our ASIs (or you get it at 12).


Level 4 spells are maybe the hardest to choose from. SkyNet wants this technology.
Death ward = fail safe on-board backup systems
Dimension door = medium range teleportation
Fire Shield = entropic energy converters
Polymorph = molecular restructuring

Wish list
Resilient sphere = forcefield bubble with EMP layers for anti hacking
Greater invisibility = light refraction technology
Ice Storm = called in artillery with localised atmospheric disturbances
Banishment = momentarily cut meat-bags time and dimension coordinates
Evard's black tentacles = programmed robotic hook lines
Arcane Eye = light refracting, partially phased drone
Conjure Minor Elementals = suicide robots



Animate objects (ofc) = flying mini buzz saws / JFK's magic bullets
Dream = nano parasites to terminate at a distance
Rary's telepathic bond = because you and your terminators are not meat-bags a of course you don't need to talk
Transmute rock = controlled high frequency burst to break down the crystalline structure of rock.

Wish list:
Synaptic state = simple electro-waves interfere with wetware computers
Wall of force (maybe instead) = forcefields (maybe instead of Bary's Telepathic Bond)



Contingency = defence programmes activated
Globe of Invulnerability = anti hacking parameter established
True seeing = full spectrum visuals
Create homunculus = bot (used especially for level 14 and to get more action economy)

Wish list (maybe swap w/ homunculus):
Disintegrate = death beam - this spell is stupid good with our level 14 ability. Maybe take it instead of demiplane or globe of Invulnerability depending on campaign.

Irresistible dance = electrocution
Soul cage = extract neural matter for post-termination interrogation
Mass Suggestion = nano-virus to interfere with wetware programming
Magic jar = emulate the identity theft seen in the newest movie; also becomes much much better with Clone and Death Ward
Investiture of X = To be honest, never thought I'd put any of these spells on a wishlist, but SkyNet also has take over the elemental plains and deal with the damage done by elemental forces




Auto-pass or Fail Attack Roll, Ability Roll or Saving Throw from Class Feature. Ignore Exhaustion if used in Shapechange with certain forms.
SkyNet has a hard time interacting with the application known as Wish amongst meat-bags.
7
Simulacrum = molecular level copy
Forcecage = more forcefields
Teleport
Crown of stars = rocket launcher arm
OR
Plane shift = time travel / alternate timelines and dimensions

Wish list
Crown of stars/Plane shift
Reverse Gravity
Mirage arcana = large scale holograpms mixed with hard light projection



Antipathy/sympathy = constant emittance of frequencies that causes panic in meat-bags
Clone
Mind Blank = perfect defense against a lot priority changing attacks for the operating system
Demiplane (for clones) = secure location for backup terminators and equipment
[/SPOILER]


Foresight
Shapechange/invulnerability


We only have two lvl 9 spells though. To be on Theme, I pick Invulnerability and Foresight. I would very much recommend Shapechange over Invulnerability for the Legendary Resistances (and also pretty on theme).

ASIs: We add Shield Master and Res:Wis to cover the other major saves.


Meta-magic is an outstanding cap-stone! Distant Counterspell is the reason the entire Build was invented and Extend allows for some vicious pre-buffing and long-resting.

We pump the last levels into Sorcerer to:
Distant Spells. Especially Counterspell. Key!
Extend Spells to enable Murder Mornings.
Shadow Sorcerer: Extra Anti-Death


Extend Magic allows you to have Foresight, Mindblank, Deathward, Upcasted Aid, cast the day before you go into battle.

The hard choice is between Foresight, Invulnerability and Shapechange.


Normally Invulnerability sucks. It is not adding anything except survivability. Also it is weak to Dispel Magic. For SkyNet, Dispel Magic doesn't matter since SkyNet has Meta-Tech and can hence counter Dispel Magic at a distance. Also, SkyNet has extend, so if you ever wanted to face-tank nuclear bombs for 20 minutes, go Invulnerability.


Shapechange is better for everything else and even perhaps more on theme, but less indestructible. Which might be a good thing - you are TOO invulnerable if you can't die from lava (first build in the thread with this problem?). Also shapechanging is a huge part of the Terminators in the newest movie... So what does it do? Shapechange will give you an infinite amount of legendary resistances, regeneration (Death Slaad), tons of abilities and the like (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?435346-Shapechange) making the low-ish int easier to bear. We like that.


Foresight is advantage on everything. Both Invulnerability and Shapechange are valid. I would probably take Foresight and Shapechange for the thematics and use-ability and because you can precast it with Extend and take a long rest. On theme!

In general, you use Extend to pre-cast all the concentration less 8-hour+ buffs you can the day prior, the rest of them you add before teleporting to the O'Connors. Death rarely matters. You got clones. Like SkyNet you have tons of time manipulation (couldn't fit in Time Stop, but y'know, maybe Scry your way to shorten some arch-wizard's lifespan and acquire it). I even find the not top-notch intelligence score to be kind of on theme considering how dumb SkyNet is in the lore.


I think Ludic's build is better in play and it's absolutely outstanding for a team. SkyNet [I] can work in a team. I mean, it's theoretically possible, but really either you are a part of SkyNet or you are about to become a historical anecdote.


The SkyNet build sacrifices a lot for survivability and thematic choices. SkyNey doesn't have a single intelligence bump in the Yuan-Ti version (hobgoblins do though), nor Wish. A bunch of great spells are sacrificed for no-concentration buffs and defensive spells that are redundant.

With the above mentioned and out of the way, I am honestly surprised how much you can make this build feel like a murderous AI and as a recreation of Terminator lore rather than as any kind of 5e tank, the SkyNet takes the prize so far IMO.

Also, in accepting straight punishment - ie. surviving a Judgement Day, Nuclear Armageddon scenario without a scratch, SkyNet takes it. Nuclear Bombs can be face-tanked for 42 minutes straight before needing a clone or a change of dimension to take a breather... And you know what? SkyNet will be back

[Dork_Forge]

snip

Since the Hollow One is a Supernatural Gift (a DM boon) and not a player option/choice, it unfortunately isn't eligible for the build but the rest looks good!

[Skylivedk]

Since the Hollow One is a Supernatural Gift (a DM boon) and not a player option/choice, it unfortunately isn't eligible for the build but the rest looks good!
Thank you for the compliment!

I'll just remove it. Not a critical piece, just some cheese topping on the cheese cake :)


[After Edit]
Done. Both entries also had a note saying Hollow One could be removed if necessary.

It did suit very well though. Even registering as an undead was kinda cool (apply nickel spray paint to a d&d skeleton and it'll look a lot like Terminator after a friendly tussle).

[Kane0]

Where can i find the Chronurgy wizard?

[LudicSavant]

Where can i find the Chronurgy wizard?

It's in Explorer's Guide to Wildemount.

[Man_Over_Game]

The Regenerator

You could probably afford to pick up Heavy Armor Master with Warding Bond. The combination would allow you to make someone ELSE a Terminator for its duration, as the damage your ally would take would be split upon you which would then be mitigated by Heavy Armor Master.

Heal your ally with Healing Word, which also heals yourself from your Life Cleric feature, and you're both up to full HP.

And if they're dumb enough to focus you...well, Heavy Armor Master certainly would help!

[LudicSavant]

You could probably afford to pick up Heavy Armor Master with Warding Bond. The combination would allow you to make someone ELSE a Terminator for its duration, as the damage your ally would take would be split upon you which would then be mitigated by Heavy Armor Master.

Heal your ally with Healing Word, which also heals yourself from your Life Cleric feature, and you're both up to full HP.

And if they're dumb enough to focus you...well, Heavy Armor Master certainly would help!

Just like your build in the Eclectic Collection thread, yeah. I thought about doing that but I wanted the Aberrant+Res combo and max Wis ASAP.

[HPisBS]

You could probably afford to pick up Heavy Armor Master with Warding Bond. The combination would allow you to make someone ELSE a Terminator for its duration, as the damage your ally would take would be split upon you which would then be mitigated by Heavy Armor Master.

There's no way I'd let it work that way lol. It's definitely not in the spirit of Heavy Armor Master. And either way, the spell says "you take the same amount of damage" - there's nothing about the type, etc. I read it to mean the damage goes directly to your hp.

Now, HAM on the warded creature would absolutely reduce the damage to both of you. (But before factoring in resistance.)

[Man_Over_Game]

There's no way I'd let it work that way lol. It's definitely not in the spirit of Heavy Armor Master. And either way, the spell says "you take the same amount of damage" - there's nothing about the type, etc. I read it to mean the damage goes directly to your hp.

Now, HAM on the warded creature would absolutely reduce the damage to both of you. (But before factoring in resistance.)

Damage through Warding Bond obeys all of the normal mechanics behind damage mitigation, even RAI according to the Devs, as they've clarified that they would have reworded Warding Bond to deny damage mitigation like how they did with the Redemption Paladin reaction. So if a Tiefling absorbs Fire Damage from Warding Bond, he'd take half.

It might not be RAI for Heavy Armor Master to not work with Warding Bond, but that isn't clarified, and it would be just as easy to errata either HAM or WB to fix the concern.

Personally, it's not about allowing an overpowered combo because the rules say you can. It's about allowing a combo encouraging teamwork to increase survivability and value from a level 2 feat and a feat that both get phased out of use in later content. If I want my players to value things like teamwork or things other than moar damage, I have to make a choice for those things to be worthwhile.

[Dark.Revenant]

(redacted)

[HPisBS]

Where Ludic's submission goes above and beyond, however, is making the *entire party* nigh on unkillable. Seeing this build in my game would absolutely horrify me.

Mmm.

I read the OP to assume a solo build -- a lone, nigh impossible-to-kill Terminator like the protagonists have to deal with in the movies.

[Dark.Revenant]

Given that one can simply give an NPC Regeneration 200 or something, I have to assume a party setting. Besides, keeping your party alive is a winning strategy to staying alive yourself.

[HPisBS]

No comprendo.

The OP just said "The goal here is to be as hard to kill as possible without taking a route of straight up avoidance, you want to keep walking dramatically like the iconic T series we all grew up fearing."

Maybe I'm just thinking about things wrong, but the iconic T series didn't time travel back to modern day in groups, so I just assumed our "terminators" would be similarly solo.


Anyway. I'm partial to the


T-44: Tank

Level 20 split: Artillerist Artificer 20

Race: Warforged


because it's a nigh untouchable (thanks to super high AC and saves) android, can break solo action economy, and has decent party support (in the event that the terminator actually has allies), thanks to the Cannon granting cover and spamming thp to everyone in range, as well the option to pass a Blur Storing Item or somesuch around to everyone, among other things.



But, seeing as how we can't vote for ourselves, I'd either have to pick the moon druid or the life cleric. I'm not sure which would be the bigger headache to take down lol. Probably the druid, since its defense doubles as offense, whereas the cleric's Regenerate can just be Dispelled.

[Dork_Forge]

Mmm.

I read the OP to assume a solo build -- a lone, nigh impossible-to-kill Terminator like the protagonists have to deal with in the movies.

This was the objective, if your builds can do something for the party then great but it isn't the focus of the build nor should it be. Each build should focus on being able to withstand as much punishment as possible, anything else is certainly gravy but voters should bear in mind what they should be looking for in these builds.

[Dark.Revenant]

This was the objective, if your builds can do something for the party then great but it isn't the focus of the build nor should it be. Each build should focus on being able to withstand as much punishment as possible, anything else is certainly gravy but voters should bear in mind what they should be looking for in these builds.

I must have misunderstood the prompt then. Perhaps for future throwdowns, the expected focus (solo play, party play, etc.) should be spelled out.


T-44: Tank

This is the best straight up solo build in the thread, only really vulnerable to straight up auto-lose spells like Forcecage, which most of the other builds are similarly vulnerable to. Vote changed!

[Dork_Forge]

I must have misunderstood the prompt then. Perhaps for future throwdowns, the expected focus (solo play, party play, etc.) should be spelled out.



This is the best straight up solo build in the thread, only really vulnerable to straight up auto-lose spells like Forcecage, which most of the other builds are similarly vulnerable to. Vote changed!

There is no focus on solo or party play, but you also cannot assume parties in these threads. It leads to things like 'well someone in the party can Counter Spell' etc.

If there is a focus on support, being a team player or solo play it will be specified in the thread, otherwise builders should try to encompass the concept the best they can and voters should vote for what they think best fulfills that concept. In this case the concept is the hardest to kill character you can make (without relying on avoidance tactics), if your character can heal or buff others that's nice, but it isn't the aim of the competition and shouldn't be a factor in voting unless two builds are equal in a person's mind and they need a tie break.

[Dark.Revenant]

There is no focus on solo or party play, but you also cannot assume parties in these threads. It leads to things like 'well someone in the party can Counter Spell' etc.

If there is a focus on support, being a team player or solo play it will be specified in the thread, otherwise builders should try to encompass the concept the best they can and voters should vote for what they think best fulfills that concept. In this case the concept is the hardest to kill character you can make (without relying on avoidance tactics), if your character can heal or buff others that's nice, but it isn't the aim of the competition and shouldn't be a factor in voting unless two builds are equal in a person's mind and they need a tie break.

For the future, you really ought to spell out specific criteria and presumptions for these entries. Otherwise, voting will more-or-less boil down to everyone's interpretation of the prompt, rather than a subjective/objective measure of build quality.

Honestly, it feels like the goalposts are moving. That's certainly something to avoid!

[Dork_Forge]

For the future, you really ought to spell out specific criteria and presumptions for these entries. Otherwise, voting will more-or-less boil down to everyone's interpretation of the prompt, rather than a subjective/objective measure of build quality.

Honestly, it feels like the goalposts are moving. That's certainly something to avoid!


The Concept: The Terminator/Your hardest to kill build

The goal here is to be as hard to kill as possible without taking a route of straight up avoidance, you want to keep walking dramatically like the iconic T series we all grew up fearing. Votes will decide which character is the toughest on the block but imaginary bonus points will be awarded to any build that isn't entirely dependent on set up (doesn't get red in the face over being surprised).

What has been moved here? Healing/buffing party members is completely irrelvant to the concept put forwards as much as doing a high amount of damage is. Questions have been answered as asked about the rules and looking over the builds quickly it doesn't seem like there has been any confusion about the aim of the contest up until this point.

[Dark.Revenant]

I read the OP to assume a solo build -- a lone, nigh impossible-to-kill Terminator like the protagonists have to deal with in the movies.

This was the objective, if your builds can do something for the party then great but it isn't the focus of the build nor should it be. Each build should focus on being able to withstand as much punishment as possible, anything else is certainly gravy but voters should bear in mind what they should be looking for in these builds.

Here it sounds like "assume a solo build" is what you're saying.


There is no focus on solo or party play, but you also cannot assume parties in these threads.

Here it sounds like "assume all party compositions" is what you're saying.

That's the sort of ambiguity I'm referring to. I don't think I am being unreasonable when I expect clearer and more consistent guidance, which would be happily solved with a more robust prompt. I'm just trying to help you.

[HPisBS]

This is the best straight up solo build in the thread, only really vulnerable to straight up auto-lose spells like Forcecage, which most of the other builds are similarly vulnerable to. Vote changed!

Woo-hoo! :biggrin:


And even something like Forcecage doesn't do much, if anything, to actually harm the Tank.

Whereas, in the Tank's hands, Force Wall can separate members of an opposing party, reducing their action economy advantage, and making it easier to focus fire.



Questions have been answered as asked about the rules and looking over the builds quickly it doesn't seem like there has been any confusion about the aim of the contest up until this point.

The gnome Zealot and the Life Cleric both kinda stood out as relying on other party members to get the full effect of the builds.

But let's say I'm mistaken on that. It still couldn't hurt to add a little extra clarification to the OP, even if it's actually unnecessary, right?

[Kane0]

Warforged Artificer has it for me now too.

[LudicSavant]

Honestly, it feels like the goalposts are moving. That's certainly something to avoid!
What has been moved here?
Well,

I made a character who I feel is hard to kill, without taking a route of straight up avoidance, keeps walking dramatically towards its foe, and doesn't get red in the face over being surprised.


The Concept: The Terminator/Your hardest to kill build

The goal here is to be as hard to kill as possible without taking a route of straight up avoidance, you want to keep walking dramatically like the iconic T series we all grew up fearing. Votes will decide which character is the toughest on the block but imaginary bonus points will be awarded to any build that isn't entirely dependent on set up (doesn't get red in the face over being surprised).

That looks like a match to me, and the majority of voters thus far seem to have agreed.

[Dork_Forge]

Well,

I made a character who I feel is hard to kill, without taking a route of straight up avoidance, keeps walking dramatically towards its foe, and doesn't get red in the face over being surprised.



That looks like a match to me, and the majority of voters thus far seem to have agreed.

At no point did I say that your build did not meet the concept, I didn't really comment on it at all. There seemed to be confusion so I cleared it up: healing, buffing, damage etc. are nice but they're strictly extras, the concept is purely about the survivability of the submitted character based solely on what the build brings to the table.

Your post uses approved materials and doesn't break any rules, if there was an issue with your build conforming to the rules I would have brought it to your attention so you could rectify it. Whether your build fits the theme the best is entirely up to the voters.

[Dark.Revenant]

At no point did I say that your build did not meet the concept, I didn't really comment on it at all. There seemed to be confusion so I cleared it up: healing, buffing, damage etc. are nice but they're strictly extras, the concept is purely about the survivability of the submitted character based solely on what the build brings to the table.

Your post uses approved materials and doesn't break any rules, if there was an issue with your build conforming to the rules I would have brought it to your attention so you could rectify it. Whether your build fits the theme the best is entirely up to the voters.

Good grief, this back and forth is giving me whiplash. If the wholeness of a build's contribution to survivability is the item in question, then boosting an entire party's survivability is clearly the more mechanically effective option. It doesn't even matter who the party is; any party (even one consisting of Planar Allies) is just massively amplified in power and turned into terminators with:


The Regenerator

Vote changed. Again!

[Dork_Forge]

Good grief, this back and forth is giving me whiplash. If the wholeness of a build's contribution to survivability is the item in question, then boosting an entire party's survivability is clearly the more mechanically effective option. It doesn't even matter who the party is; any party (even one consisting of Planar Allies) is just massively amplified in power and turned into terminators with:



Vote changed. Again!

I truly don't understand what all of the confusion is here but your post doesn't seem to reflect what I actually said. It is about the individual character's survivability. It should be just as viable with or without a party because a party of any description is not a factor for the concept.

If you want to interpret that as 'well if the whole party is more likely to survive, then the individual is more likely to survive' then go ahead, but that isn't the intention or spirit of what this was meant to be. There has been no actual back and forth, there was no mention whatsoever of party members in the original post outlining the contest. You could say something like 'D&D is a group game' and it is, but you're inserting your own context onto the comptetition. Vote however you like, I don't know how to be any clearer about what this was meant to be.

[N7Paladin]

I don't get why it's so hard for people to understand, or why they're being rude.

It's not a difficult concept, but one of the entries that's getting votes, very clearly doesn't meet the heart of the challenge. Sorry, but some of these votes shouldn't count bc the entry itself doesn't qualify as it doesn't meet the hard to kill concept. Some of the votes seem misplaced; this isn't a healer build or a build revolving a group.

I want to enter one of my [few] non-paladins characters, but some of this seems too much of a circlejerk and if the player had any respect (for themselves and everyon else entering) he/she should rescind his/her build or change it.

[Greywander]

I think what Dork_Forge is saying is that a build that does well in a party but can't stand up in solo doesn't fit the spirit of the thread. The important thing is that the build can hold up in solo, but if it also performs well in a party then voters might consider that an extra benefit. Essentially, I think it boils down to, "You can't assume party members, just like you can't assume magic items." Magic items may or may not be present, in an actual-play scenario. Likewise, party members, generally, or specific builds, may or may not be present. Our builds shouldn't rely on them, but they don't have to dismiss them, either.

The Regenerator is still pretty survivable in solo, but seems like it would do best in a party. Whether that's enough to win the contest is up to us, the voters, not to Dork_Forge. Ultimately, we're the ones who make the decision, Dork_Forge merely sets everything up and gets it rolling.

[Skylivedk]

I don't get why it's so hard for people to understand, or why they're being rude.

It's not a difficult concept, but one of the entries that's getting votes, very clearly doesn't meet the heart of the challenge. Sorry, but some of these votes shouldn't count bc the entry itself doesn't qualify as it doesn't meet the hard to kill concept. Some of the votes seem misplaced; this isn't a healer build or a build revolving a group.

I want to enter one of my [few] non-paladins characters, but some of this seems too much of a circlejerk and if the player had any respect (for themselves and everyon else entering) he/she should rescind his/her build or change it.

I don't get your point. If you use healing to tank (like a regenerating Terminator) and you do so as well or better than (most) other tanks while providing other tank benefits (hard to ignore, denies access to squishy party members) should you then be punished for adding more abilities? That makes no sense to me.

I could understand if your build did something like that INSTEAD of being hard to put down. When it is hard to put down AND actually does something else, it ought to be a plus (especially if it is on theme), not a minus or disqualification.

[Dork_Forge]

I think what Dork_Forge is saying is that a build that does well in a party but can't stand up in solo doesn't fit the spirit of the thread. The important thing is that the build can hold up in solo, but if it also performs well in a party then voters might consider that an extra benefit. Essentially, I think it boils down to, "You can't assume party members, just like you can't assume magic items." Magic items may or may not be present, in an actual-play scenario. Likewise, party members, generally, or specific builds, may or may not be present. Our builds shouldn't rely on them, but they don't have to dismiss them, either.

The Regenerator is still pretty survivable in solo, but seems like it would do best in a party. Whether that's enough to win the contest is up to us, the voters, not to Dork_Forge. Ultimately, we're the ones who make the decision, Dork_Forge merely sets everything up and gets it rolling.

Exactly this, thank you for typing that out!

There was a thread about why we don't have these kinds of competitions, I enjoy this kind of thing so have been trying my best to facilitate it, up until today I thought it had been going rather well!

[Kane0]

Yeah i thought the concept was pretty clear and things were going well. Mind you neither of my builds really had drawing aggro in mind.

The Regenorator seems to be a fine survivor, it just gets its longevity by healing itself instead of shrugging off incoming damage in the first place. A Paladin could do the same thing to a lesser degree.

[Chaos Jackal]

Well, given that the Life Cleric in question works from lv1, boasts decently high AC, decently high saves, the ability to pop back from death, actions to spare on Dodge while still hitting stuff and healing and massive amounts of effective HP from said healing, I'd say it fits the theme. There's nothing in the build that relies on other party members, as far as I can see.

My vote and the reasons for it remain unchanged.

[Dark.Revenant]

My vote mostly hinged on whether to include party performance (in addition to solo) in my evaluation, or to evaluate purely on solo performance to the exclusion of everything else.

I actually think the Regenerator is more survivable, for the narrow definition of survival, than the competition. It falls behind T-42 in damage output, which makes it the lesser of the two in practical soloing scenarios, but in terms of just “stay alive as long as possible” it’s hard to argue with thousands of HP of healing.

It came down to “is being somewhat better at actually winning solo fights more important of an X-factor than basically making your team unbeatable?” For me, the latter is more appealing.

[Kane0]

If anything, Dork Forge, it might be cool to have some sample opposition that our terminators would have to weather fire from. To test our mettle so to speak.
Probably do that after submissions though so we cant make anything to address those threats speficifally.

[sithlordnergal]

Hmmm, I like the Regenerator...if there's one mark I'd put against it, its that it relies heavily of spell slots, and Regenerate takes a minute to cast. So you can't really do it if you're caught with your pants down. Plus once you're out of spell slots to heal, you're kind of up the creek without a paddle.

Would it win against a plain Moon Druid? Ehhh, tier 1 I don't think it would, tier 2 I'd say they're evenly matched due to the Druid's spell list, tier 3 the cleric wins hands down, and at level 20 the Moon Druid wins due to resourceless, bonus action Wild Shapes that don'trequire attack rolls to hit you and never need to sleep because of exhaustion immunity.

That said, I give my vote to the Regenorator, because it is far more interesting then a Moon Druid.

[Skylivedk]

While updating the SkyNet post to remove walls of text, add some flavour and a how-to-play and structure the whole thing better (aka to be less of a freaking meat-bag when posting), SkyNet broke GitP:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/593768513995538433/713409571867066458/skynet.png?width=1440&height=683

I don't know if it counts for something.

I fixed it.

Now, I fear my electronics.

[bid]

Hmmm, I like the Regenerator...if there's one mark I'd put against it, its that it relies heavily of spell slots, and Regenerate takes a minute to cast. So you can't really do it if you're caught with your pants down. Plus once you're out of spell slots to heal, you're kind of up the creek without a paddle.
A barbarian MC will run out of rage too. Every build has its bane.

Regenerator wins on creativity IMHO.

[Dork_Forge]

So my own personal approach to a hard to kill build usually ends up looking like Wovlerine (or in a Terminator sense, more like the T1000), taking a decent/good AC to mitigate hits but relying on a temp hp buffer, sheer amount hit points and the ability to heal at a ridiculous rate to endure. I've played this build in one shots, in PvP and I'm currently playing it in DiA and it's working out really well, I can stand shoulder to shoulder with our straight Paladin without any real fear of dropping so far.

The Wolverine (T-1000)

https://imagehost.imageupload.net/2020/05/22/f6f1c4b73909787f5350e47a30f6e032.jpg

Level 20 Split: Fighter 1/ Celestial Chainlock 14/ Divine Soul 1/ chainlock 3/ Fighter 1

Race: V. Human (Tough)

Starting stats: Str: 8 / Dex: 14 / Con: 15 (16) / Int: 8 / Wis: 10 / Cha: 15(16)

Background:To taste


Our starting level will be in Fighter picking up the Defense style, giving us:

HP:15 AC: 19 (Chain mail, Defense, shield)

Healing Factor: we can Second Wind for 1d10+1 every short rest.






HP:55 AC: 19 (swapping from Chain to Breastplate if possible)

ASI at 5th bumping Cha to 18

We'll be taking Pact of the Chain (Imp that mostly stays hidden and out of range) and Gift of the Ever Living Ones to max all of our personal heals. Fiendish Vigor will give us False Life temp hp on tap (8 if your DM is okay with recasting until you max it since it's an at will ability, 6.5 avg if not) and Agonizing Blast will give us our pilfered gun so to speak.

Healing factor:
-Second Wind (11hp) per short rest

-Healing Light (30hp. up tp 24hp in a single bonus action) per long rest

-Cure Wounds (20hp per action) up to twice per short rest




HP: 105 AC: 20 (Half Plate, shield, Defense)

ASI maxing our Cha at 9th level

With our 4th Invocation comes our panic button: Tomb of Levistus- as a reaction gain 100 temp hp (which takes the triggering damage), you get vulnerability to fire (but with that kind of temp hp a fair trade off), you get incapacitated though so not great if concentrating

5th invocation to taste

We also now have resistance to Radiant damage (and a bump to fire and radiant damage)

Temp HP: 15 whenever we finish a rest, 6.5 avg at will from Fiendish Vigor to top up between encounters (10thp for our familiar and 4 party members)

Healing factor:
-Second Wind (11hp) per short rest

-Healing Light (60hp, up to 30hp as a single bonus action) per long rest

-Cure Wounds (45hp per action) up to twice per rest




Our Warlock (12) ASI will bump our Con up to 18.

We get one level of Divine Soul Sorc giving up Divine Favor (2d4) to help with saves once per rest and the option to use Shield or Absorb Elements a couple times per day

We have the invocations we need so choose the rest as you see fit

We have our 6th and 7th level Mystic Arcanums, there's nothing really to boost our durability that I can see so follow your bliss on them.

As for our unkillableness? This is where we dial it to 11:

HP: 191 AC: 20 (25 with Shield)

Temp HP: 20 per rest, 6.5avg at will and 150 on reaction (ToL)

Healing factor:
-Second Wind (11hp) per short rest

-Healing Light (96hp, up to 30hp as a single bonus action) per long rest

-Cure Wounds (45hp per action) up to three per rest

And the big gun

-If we are reduced to 0 then we can get back up at 80hp, deal a bit of radiant damage and potentially blind your enemies


Summary at level 20

ASIs Spent in order: +2 Cha, +2 Cha, +2 Con, +2 Con

Final Stats: Str: 8 / Dex: 14 / Con: 20 / Int: 8 / Wis: 10 / Cha: 20

HP: 256 AC:20 (25)

Temp HP: 22 per any rest (13 for party), 6.5avg at will, 170 reaction (Tomb of Levistus)

Healing factor:
-Second Wind (12hp) per short rest

-Healing Light (108hp, up to 30hp as a single bonus action) per long rest

-Cure Wounds (45hp per action) up to four per short rest

-Searing Vengeance: instead of a death save get back up at 128HP (with aoe damage and blindness) once per long rest

Other Defenses and notable tools:

-Shield

-Absorb Elements

-Counter Spell (auto upcast)

-Dispel Magic (auto upcast)

-Lesser/Greater Restoration

-Divine Favor (2d4 to a save) short rest recharge

-Resistance to Radiant damage

-Action Surge (allowing a Cure Wounds to be cast whilst still be on the offense or to be cast twice if turbo healing is needed) short rest recharge



Total amount of damage needed to kill Wolverine (T-1000) in a single combat (assuming all resources are available and spent on self healing: 706 points of damage needed*

*This doesn't account for any elemental damage that can be reduced via Absorb Elements and doesn't account for using Sorc slots for healing (potentially another 26hp)

Final thoughts: I think this is a very strong build overall, with the following strong points:

-Action economy, with so much bonus action and reaction abilities (and the support of Action Surge), we can heal whilst still attacking (casting leveled spells at the same time if we want to)

-A lot of total hp to soak damage if caught unaware or put under a debuff

-Massive amount of self healing (most of which can be shared if desired)

-Temp hp going into every combat

-Defenses against magic and status effects (Counter Spell, Dispel Magic, Greater/Lesser Restoration, Divine Favor)

-Longevity: Warlock slots, Divine Favor, Second Wind, Action Surge and Celestial Resilience are all short rest recharge and Invocations provide a bevy of passive or at will benefits.

[HPisBS]

Throughout this whole thing, I've been thinking about how these builds would survive a general 1-v-many, and how they'd survive any 1-v-1, particularly against other builds here - which means what it'd take to put each one down for good.

Against something with Regenerate (1 min casting time), you just start with Dispel Magic. Poof, that's gone. Even DunDun-Dun-DunDun has to contend with that. Though, being a swords bard, he can just protect his regeneration with Counterspell, so he's got that going for him, at least.

But against a moon druid that can wild shape into an elemental as many times as he wants? That's rough. There's only two surefire ways I can think of to overcome all of that infinite free hp:

Power Word Kill to turn the wild shape into a death sentence (just harm it once to get it below 100 hp first - maybe with a readied spell, or something from your Simulacrum).
Get it down to ~30 hp, (or, if you have allies, wait for the monk to stun it while it's only down to ~70 hp), before finishing it off with Disintegrate.


There's also Slow to block the whole wildshape-to-wildshape tactic, but that's a bit too finicky, since the druid gets to repeat his save (with proficiency).

- Although, if he's specifically shaped into a Fire Elemental, then a simple Tidal Wave would "splash" so much water on it that the cold damage would not only break the wild shape, but outright kill the druid within.


... Sadly, my favorite build, the T-44 Tank, doesn't have the right tools (heh) against the moon druid. The best it could do is probably to exchange its Brooch of Shielding for Resistant Armor (fire), either concentrate on Animated Objects (if not a fire elemental) or Elemental Bane (cold), then hammer it with Frostbites (or Fire Bolts if not a fire elemental), Force Ballista Cannon shots, and Catapulted water jugs. ...At least there's no real danger of the Tank failing any Con saves, since that's at +18.

It'd be a long, long, LONG slog, but the druid could . . . e v e n t u a l l y. . . land enough crits (literally the only way a fire or water elemental can touch the Tank's AC) to overcome the Tank's endlessly refilling, fire-resistant, 1d8+5 thp. Whereas, a lone Tank wouldn't be able to chew through the wild shapes' free hp fast enough to bring the inner druid down.

- (Now a party of, say, four Tanks vs an equal party of moon druids? That could be a different story, since so much focus fire would be enough to break a wild shape and reach the real druid within, while the druids still couldn't touch the Tanks' real hp without crits or burning high-level spell slots, and even then, those spells will likely fail to overcome the Tanks' crazy-high saves.)


No, for a 1-v-1, you'd really want a full caster with Power Word Kill, or at least Disintegrate. Having a Simulacrum, like the bard can, really helps to overcome the constant hp replenishment via wild shape.

Ultimately, with 1-v-1's, you wind up with: DunDun-Dun-DunDun (Swords Bard) > Moon Druid > T-44 Tank (Artillerist Artificer) > DunDun-Dun-DunDun.

[Dork_Forge]

no new builds will be accepted, please cast your votes and if part of the previous confusion please clarify your votes using the listed method

Here is a list of all entries. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24511012&postcount=2)

[Lavaeolus]

Terminator build deadline: 22/05/2020 @ 12am BST, 7 EST

Voting deadline: 23/05/2020 @ 12am BST, 7 EST

I probably should've noticed this earlier, and fortunately it leans on the deadline seeming a little earlier than it is than the other way around, but I think the timing's a little off -- or, at least, worthy of clarification.

(I'm assuming BST is British Summer Time and EST is Eastern Standard Time.)

I would read 22/05 @ 12am as the very start of the day, whereas you seem to be using it as the very end (given the voting deadline just passed). Note that means the dates between time zones are different!

This is going to sound a bit more like me being a timezone pedant, but 12am BST is also technically equal to 6pm (18:00) EST. You know how UK switches between GMT and BST? Most of America has gone into daylights savings, which means most places using EST went to EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). You'll find a lot of automatic converters will just correct you and give you EDT results if you use EST, because this is a common and easy mistake to make, but ET (Eastern Time) is the more common term for 'whatever time is currently being observed'.

Finally: given the AM/PM switch, it'd probably be worth either clarifying you mean 7pm, or using the 24-hour-clock. I promise to stop talking time soon, especially after we've already had some discussions about what builds to go for, but it's in the interest of avoiding any time mishaps later on, in future threads.

So, translating all that into what the time should be, I think it should be something like:


Terminator build deadline: 22/05/2020 @ 7pm ET, 23/05/2020 @ 12am BST.

Voting deadline: 23/05/2020 @ 7pm ET, 24/05/2020 @ 12am BST.

A little more messy looking, alas.

EDIT: Fixed my own time mistakes!

[Dork_Forge]

I probably should've noticed this earlier, and fortunately it leans on the deadline seeming a little earlier than it is than the other way around, but I think the timing's a little off -- or, at least, worthy of clarification.

(I'm assuming BST is British Summer Time and EST is Eastern Standard Time.)

I would read 22/05 @ 12am as the very start of the day, whereas you seem to be using it as the very end (given the voting deadline just passed). Note that means the dates between time zones are different!

This is going to sound a bit more like me being a timezone pedant, but 12am BST is also technically equal to 6pm (18:00) EST. You know how UK switches between GMT and BST? Most of America has gone into daylights savings, which means most places using EST went to EDT (Eastern Daylight Time). You'll find a lot of automatic converters will just correct you and give you EDT results if you use EST, because this is a common and easy mistake to make, but ET (Eastern Time) is the more common term for 'whatever time is currently being observed'.

Finally: given the AM/PM switch, it'd probably be worth either clarifying you mean 7pm, or using the 24-hour-clock. I promise to stop talking time soon, especially after we've already had some discussions about what builds to go for, but it's in the interest of avoiding any time mishaps later on, in future threads.

So, translating all that into what the time should be, I think it should be something like:



A little more messy looking, alas.

EDIT: Fixed my own time mistakes!

Ah thank you! I do hate this changing the clocks malarchy! I'll fix that now

[Skylivedk]

Throughout this whole thing, I've been thinking about how these builds would survive a general 1-v-many, and how they'd survive any 1-v-1, particularly against other builds here - which means what it'd take to put each one down for good.

Against something with Regenerate (1 min casting time), you just start with Dispel Magic. Poof, that's gone. Even DunDun-Dun-DunDun has to contend with that. Though, being a swords bard, he can just protect his regeneration with Counterspell, so he's got that going for him, at least.

But against a moon druid that can wild shape into an elemental as many times as he wants? That's rough. There's only two surefire ways I can think of to overcome all of that infinite free hp:

Power Word Kill to turn the wild shape into a death sentence (just harm it once to get it below 100 hp first - maybe with a readied spell, or something from your Simulacrum).
Get it down to ~30 hp, (or, if you have allies, wait for the monk to stun it while it's only down to ~70 hp), before finishing it off with Disintegrate.


There's also Slow to block the whole wildshape-to-wildshape tactic, but that's a bit too finicky, since the druid gets to repeat his save (with proficiency).

- Although, if he's specifically shaped into a Fire Elemental, then a simple Tidal Wave would "splash" so much water on it that the cold damage would not only break the wild shape, but outright kill the druid within.


... Sadly, my favorite build, the T-44 Tank, doesn't have the right tools (heh) against the moon druid. The best it could do is probably to exchange its Brooch of Shielding for Resistant Armor (fire), either concentrate on Animated Objects (if not a fire elemental) or Elemental Bane (cold), then hammer it with Frostbites (or Fire Bolts if not a fire elemental), Force Ballista Cannon shots, and Catapulted water jugs. ...At least there's no real danger of the Tank failing any Con saves, since that's at +18.

It'd be a long, long, LONG slog, but the druid could . . . e v e n t u a l l y. . . land enough crits (literally the only way a fire or water elemental can touch the Tank's AC) to overcome the Tank's endlessly refilling, fire-resistant, 1d8+5 thp. Whereas, a lone Tank wouldn't be able to chew through the wild shapes' free hp fast enough to bring the inner druid down.

- (Now a party of, say, four Tanks vs an equal party of moon druids? That could be a different story, since so much focus fire would be enough to break a wild shape and reach the real druid within, while the druids still couldn't touch the Tanks' real hp without crits or burning high-level spell slots, and even then, those spells will likely fail to overcome the Tanks' crazy-high saves.)


No, for a 1-v-1, you'd really want a full caster with Power Word Kill, or at least Disintegrate. Having a Simulacrum, like the bard can, really helps to overcome the constant hp replenishment via wild shape.

Ultimately, with 1-v-1's, you wind up with: DunDun-Dun-DunDun (Swords Bard) > Moon Druid > T-44 Tank (Artillerist Artificer) > DunDun-Dun-DunDun.

It depends a lot on starting position and spells. SkyNet could forcecage trap a moon druid. Unfortunately, it is super hard to kill, but I think with your superior action economy (4 actions/spells/concentration slot in a round), you should be able to find a way (how much hp do we need to remove? 126 for Earth Elemental? If the druid is not using Elementals, sickening radiance kills him eventually). The moon druid can't touch your counter-spelling and disintegrate is both on your list (think wish list in the build I posted - EDIT it is) and you can double it.

Just the simulacrum and the main using disintegrate with a forced fail from their level 14 is a dead druid.
You can add two lvl 4 fireballs from your familiar or homunculus activating your level 10 chrono beads.

Actually with the level 14 ability, you can kill in a lot ways. All save or suck spell can work.

The level 10 and 14 abilities plus distant counterspell along with forcecage... It's hard to deal with without good range or counter-spelling. Again granted positioning etc isn't horrible. Hence all the scrying and surveillance spells.

[N7Paladin]

I don't get your point. If you use healing to tank (like a regenerating Terminator) and you do so as well or better than (most) other tanks while providing other tank benefits (hard to ignore, denies access to squishy party members) should you then be punished for adding more abilities? That makes no sense to me.

I could understand if your build did something like that INSTEAD of being hard to put down. When it is hard to put down AND actually does something else, it ought to be a plus (especially if it is on theme), not a minus or disqualification.

No worries, I can definitely see what I said wasn't specific enough for what I was trying to say :)

Here's what I mean, broken down, I hope I don't bore ya :smalltongue:

Ignoring the healing and buffing allies part, and the build is only "alright" at being hard to kill. Now, let's keep in mind the focus of the challenge is to be the hardest to kill, not be the best support character.

It depends on spells for pretty much everything, and clerics are long rest casters, and this is a one class build so there's no real way around it.

Next, hit points. For what it's meant to be, the hard to kill, terminator, theme of the challenge, its hit points are medicre at best.

Saying so many thousand hp from "Preserve Life" is super flashy, but in reality it can only heal up to half hp, consumes your action and a lot of that big number is likely gonna be lost. It's a terrible ability for keeping the character alive (at level 20 the best it can do is take the character up to 91hp) and is best suited to party support (which I think the builder thought was part of the challenge anyway), not the actual point of the challenge.

Obviously, it's actually dependent on "Regeneration" to actually be the regenerator--is a 7th level spell with a minute cast time. :smalleek:That's insane to me because a round of combat lasts six seconds. So unless you cast it before a fight (so missing out on a big chunk of the healing it gives) it's completely useless and you don't even get it until 13th level (and this meant to follow a character who is hard to kill, throughout it's entire progression/career, not hard to kill at lvl 20, so this is another bad point). Anyway, back to it, best you can have it for is four hours a day, but then you're using your 8th and 9th level slots on a spell that doesn't even upcast :smallconfused:

All it would take is a single successful casting "Dispel Magic" to wipe out: "Aid," "Death Ward," "Regeneration," and any other buffs. Another poster has already highlighted another weakness: "Chill Touch" which does both damage AND shuts down healing. Just those two things together look like a pretty big weakness. :smallannoyed: Since this character he built is depenedent on spells to make it actually survivable, if it is surprised, it's going to go badly very quickly as it doesn't have a big hp pool to begin with. The longest survival buff is "Death Ward," so unless you're burning through your limited slots to try and cover all day (4 spells slots of 4th level or higher required, assuming it never gets triggered and so needs to be refreshed earlier) you're vulnerable in a way that something like a Half Orc wouldn't be.

Tanking through healing is all well and good, but the build doesn't really tank better than most conventional tanks and is a better Healer of others than anything else, and as I mentioned before, this isn't a healer challenge (and if you are just healing yourself, you're likely losing actions to it and a single "Counter Spell" can really mess you up).


Thanks for reading, I know it was a long reply :smallsmile::smalltongue:
------

To the person who said it was very creative or whatever...

I'll admit, I like the name, but to me it by and large doesn't follow the spirit of the challenge and should be better saved for a support character competition. I don't see much creativity in a single class tank that isn't as robust as a single classed Half Orc, Totem of the Bear Barbarian.

I mean no offense to the creator, I just don't think that it's actually very good at what it's meant to be (being hard to kill) and I think some voters have been swayed by the inherent party healing/support a Life Cleric brings (as well as the unexpected nature of using a single classed Cleric for this kind of challenge) instead of focusing on how hard to kill the character itself is.

[Kane0]

Sorta surprised my Abjurer 20 didnt get the same criticism.

[Skylivedk]

Sorta surprised my Abjurer 20 didnt get the same criticism.
The Gish that won last Throwdown also didn't face that question :)

Anyway, weaknesses are valid concerns. That said, it's not hard to get out of counterspell range/LoS, so most of the time the Regenerator can keep on coming. With Spirit Guardians and Spiritual Weapon, you are free to use your action to heal. Plus you have better zone controls/stickiness than most martials due to SG. If you play with a lot of Dispel Magic casting creatures in your campaign, it gets harder.

And if we're talking spells; that would also utterly destroy some of the other builds(ie int or charisma on the barbarian builds). It seems fair to me that we apply the same yardstick across the board.

[N7Paladin]

Sorta surprised my Abjurer 20 didnt get the same criticism.

So first, I'm gonna be completely honest with ya... I am so not the biggest fan of Wizards. :smalltongue:

That said, I can see how it looks like it's a similar situation, but there's some big and important differences:

"Arcane Ward" lasts all day once you start it, it can't be dispelled either (well, I don't think so... ).

Poison resistance is nice to have.

Spell resistance is really awesome and always on.

A lot of your defensive spells are reaction based ("Shield," "Absorb Elements," "Counterspell").

The Regenerator has nothing like the aforementioned, and doesn't have any passive countermeasures that make him hard to kill, other than AC. :smallyuk:

Being a long rest caster is countered somewhat by "Arcane Recovery" at all levels and "Spell Mastery"/"Signature Spells" at high levels. Even at high levels, how the regenerator is set up is likely to leave it running out of meaningful slots before the day is over. The Abjurer on the other hand, can cast "Shield" all day long and "Counter Spell" once per short rest for free on top of getting spell slots from "Arcane Recovery."

I admit, I don't know how useful "Dwarven Fortitude" is, but it sounds nice to have if things go wrong near the end of the fight.

The whole reason I made the post about the regenerator, though, is because people seemed to be voting for it for the wrong reasons, meaning it could win even though it wouldn't actually being the hardest to kill or even come close, judging by builds like T-44 Tank, or more recently, the Wolverine. Anyway, that wasn't an issue with your Abjurer and I don't like to just criticize people's builds for no reason :smallsmile:
-------
Edit:

The Gish that won last Throwdown also didn't face that question :)

-snip-

And if we're talking spells; that would also utterly destroy some of the other builds(ie int or charisma on the barbarian builds). It seems fair to me that we apply the same yardstick across the board.

I'm not sure if your post was in reference to mine, but if it is:

I don't see how that's relevant, I didn't post in that thread...

As for the Regen build, unlike the other builds I've seen in the competition, it very much seems 1) it doesn't follow the challenge and 2) it doesn't actually seem hard to kill at all, judging by it's one sided defenses, and being literally depending on spells for everything.

Additionally, questioning the legitimacy of an entry isn't measuring with a different yard stick, and I'm sorry you feel that way.

You seem to be completely missing the crux of my point--

It looks like people were voting for it because of how well it could heal/buff the party, not based on how hard it is to kill itself.

[Kane0]

I admit, I don't know how useful "Dwarven Fortitude" is, but it sounds nice to have if things go wrong near the end of the fight.


Because as far as i can tell this particular challenge has nothing to do with offensive power i figured using your action to dodge plus heal at the same time would be a good idea.
Turns out a few others had the same thought.

[N7Paladin]

Because as far as i can tell this particular challenge has nothing to do with offensive power i figured using your action to dodge plus heal at the same time would be a good idea.
Turns out a few others had the same thought.



Ohhh!😆 Where's a Picard's facepalm meme when you need it? Of course, that makes perfect sense! Sorry I didn't get it right away, thank you for explaining it 😁

[LudicSavant]

Obviously, it's actually dependent on "Regeneration" to actually be the regenerator

I disagree with your assessment.

I think you're making a lot of assumptions based on superficial factors like the name. You might as well have said "obviously, the build is worthless until level 13." It was a strong tank before then, and doesn't somehow become less versatile or more dependent as soon as it gets Regenerate.

Regenerate is a nice trick, but to me it's just another thing in your toolbox. It's the Regenerator because it heals its wounds, not because of any single spell alone. For instance, at level 1 you can Shield, generate temp HP, heal most or all a character's hp, and Booming Blade in the same round.


A lot of your defensive spells are reaction based ("Shield," "Absorb Elements," "Counterspell").

The Regenerator has nothing like the aforementioned

It has Shield. And Absorb Elements. And your choice of Hellish Rebuke or Counterspell.


So first, I'm gonna be completely honest with ya... I am so not the biggest fan of Wizards. :smalltongue:

We will just have to disagree, I think.

[Skylivedk]

So first, I'm gonna be completely honest with ya... I am so not the biggest fan of Wizards. :smalltongue:

That said, I can see how it looks like it's a similar situation, but there's some big and important differences:

"Arcane Ward" lasts all day once you start it, it can't be dispelled either (well, I don't think so... ).

Poison resistance is nice to have.

Spell resistance is really awesome and always on.

A lot of your defensive spells are reaction based ("Shield," "Absorb Elements," "Counterspell").

The Regenerator has nothing like the aforementioned, and doesn't have any passive countermeasures that make him hard to kill, other than AC. :smallyuk:

Being a long rest caster is countered somewhat by "Arcane Recovery" at all levels and "Spell Mastery"/"Signature Spells" at high levels. Even at high levels, how the regenerator is set up is likely to leave it running out of meaningful slots before the day is over. The Abjurer on the other hand, can cast "Shield" all day long and "Counter Spell" once per short rest for free on top of getting spell slots from "Arcane Recovery."

I admit, I don't know how useful "Dwarven Fortitude" is, but it sounds nice to have if things go wrong near the end of the fight.

The whole reason I made the post about the regenerator, though, is because people seemed to be voting for it for the wrong reasons, meaning it could win even though it wouldn't actually being the hardest to kill or even come close, judging by builds like T-44 Tank, or more recently, the Wolverine. Anyway, that wasn't an issue with your Abjurer and I don't like to just criticize people's builds for no reason :smallsmile:
-------
Edit:


I'm not sure if your post was in reference to mine, but if it is:

I don't see how that's relevant, I didn't post in that thread...

As for the Regen build, unlike the other builds I've seen in the competition, it very much seems 1) it doesn't follow the challenge and 2) it doesn't actually seem hard to kill at all, judging by it's one sided defenses, and being literally depending on spells for everything.

Additionally, questioning the legitimacy of an entry isn't measuring with a different yard stick, and I'm sorry you feel that way.

You seem to be completely missing the crux of my point--

It looks like people were voting for it because of how well it could heal/buff the party, not based on how hard it is to kill itself.

Ok, in the case, rest assured. Personally, I picked it for its ludicrously strong total hp pool along with a bunch of the other tank abilities that I normally find lacking in traditional tanks.

As for battling casters, especially anyone with subtle/distant a lot of the builds suffer. The Dragon Cooker: forcecage + sickening radiance plus subtle/distant counterspell + whatever you want to do with your action will obliterate most of the builds. But let's be honest: that's a very niche case, hence we don't value it very highly. We each have defenses we value highly, and all of the builds have some weaknesses that can be exploited.

I haven't done the calculations comparing the total amount of self-healing on the Wolverine: really cool tank, I love how it also has counterspell and has a way of dealing with status effects. Wis and int saves from outside of counterspell range are a problem. The T-44 is a lot weaker against spells as well with very few tools in that regard.

[Dualswinger]

Frosty the Glowman


Level 20 level split: Celestial Warlock 2 / Abjuration Wizard 18

Race: Mountain Dwarf


Str: 13(+2 Racial) / Dex: 8 / Con: 13(+2 Racial) / Int: 15 / Wis: 11 / Cha: 13



Str: 16 / Dex: 8 / Con: 16 / Int: 20 / Wis: 11 / Cha: 13


ASIs:

- Str+1/Int+1
- Int + 2
- Int +2
- Dwarven Fortitude (+1 Con)

Background: Outlander (No real reason I just like the idea of this "mountain blizzard" character being a rough liver.


Starting level: Celestial Warlock 2 - Abjuration Wizard 2

We all need help getting started, so a Celestial is a good place to give us a leg up. Primarily we're taking this just for the Armor of Shadows invocation, but the bonus action healing 3 times per day is also nice and will make our healer very happy we have a backup. Choose your other invocation to be whatever you want. Misty Visions or Devil's sight would be my choice, but really up to you. The core of this build starts at level Abjuration Wizard 2. Our Arcane Ward can now be recharged at will since we can cast Mage Armor whenever we want. The fact that we're wearing heavy armour for our AC is immaterial, it's an abjuration spell, so that Arcane Ward gets recharged basically at will. Other fun effect? Use our highest spell slot to cast Armor of Agathys. Since Arcane Ward loses its HP before our Temp HP, any melee hit will be bad news for our enemies. This is a Wizard who lives for the front lines.


At 5th level:


From now on it's pretty much Abjuration Wizard all the way. As our spell slots increase, so too does the Frosty Damage. Max out your INT as soon as possible to keep that Arcane Ward high, and if facing a single tough enemy, don't be afraid to burn those slots on Absorb elements or Shield to keep that Ward up.


At 11th level:

More Wizard levels. It's now we get our 5th level slots and higher, so we can do some fun stuff. Don't forget to setup a Contingency to reset your Armor of Agathys if it is depleted. Globe of Invulnerability will make many spellcasters cry.

At 17th level:

Wizarrrrrrd.... Antimagic field also makes spellcasters cry, and you're still an angry Dwarf in platemail when you cast it. Dwarven Fortitude can top up your regular HP (remember that?) if you need to.

At 20th level and final thoughts:

INVULNERABILITY! Just because YOU can't take damage doesn't mean that your enemies won't still trigger Armor of Agathys if they hit you. So bait them into making swipes at your perfect self and let them break like storm upon the mighty mountain. Make sure that your spell mastery choice is absorb elements. It's not action to action damage that worries us, but those hard hitting elemental attacks such as Dragon breaths.



Ultimately it's not our high AC from platemail (though it helps) that gets us through the day, but just our unending ability to use arcane ward to just shrug off damage.

This isn't fully thought out, and I'm sure there are better ways to do it, but the core Chassis of the build is present here. Enjoy! :)

[HPisBS]

I haven't done the calculations comparing the total amount of self-healing on the Wolverine: really cool tank, I love how it also has counterspell and has a way of dealing with status effects. Wis and int saves from outside of counterspell range are a problem. The T-44 is a lot weaker against spells as well with very few tools in that regard.

You sure about that? Lacking Counterspell is certainly unfortunate, but opposing casters will still have a hard time making stuff stick. After all, the Tank's weakest save is Cha at +8, and can be bumped to +13 if necessary, while its weakest common save is Dex with a +10 / +15.

Meanwhile, most save-or-suck spells would have to overcome a whopping +15 / +20 Wis save. Honestly, casting anything other than save-for-half-damage spells at it seems like a waste. ...But, unlike with Counterspell, opposing casters won't be able to recognize that fact -- at least, not easily. Which means, they're likely to continue wasting their spells and actions trying to do the (virtually) impossible.

[Dork_Forge]

snipped

Technically this submission should have been too late, but I made a mistake in listing the deadlines so feel a bit bad about this. I'll add your build into the contenders. (Edit: Done)

Announcement: Due to my error in listing the times originally, I will extend the voting deadline until 11pm BST, 6pm ET on the 24/05/2020


I haven't done the calculations comparing the total amount of self-healing on the Wolverine: really cool tank, I love how it also has counterspell and has a way of dealing with status effects. Wis and int saves from outside of counterspell range are a problem. The T-44 is a lot weaker against spells as well with very few tools in that regard.

I'll reply to this just because it mentions with my build, The Wolverine has Divine Favor as a generic saving throw boost every short rest and I think failing those saves would be mitigated by a combination of his large hp pool, reaction defences and ability to deal with statuses. That's by no means accounting for everything those saves can inflict but he does have defences. I wanted to avoid specifics in the build but on the topic of distance: he's just as good at using Eldritch Blast as any other Warlock, so someone playing it could either hang way back, or charge into the fray (especially if wanting to use something like AoA) but distances get a bit too close to the avoidance clause of the competition, so I just worked under the assumption of decently close quarters.

The T-44 is actually pretty decent against spells, getting temp hp from the turret can't be Counter Spelled, the build gives itself access to save increasing items (cloak of protection etc.), has Flash of Genius and at 20th level has a boost to saving throws per attuned item (which it can start sacrificing if things start to get really dire). T-44 actually have a very strong set of defences against... well everything to be honest, the biggest weakness I can see is not being able to count on turrets in round 1, but it has the tools to survive until round 2 anyway. It'll actually be getting my vote because it is so robust.

[N7Paladin]

snip

I didn't make assumptions on the name, I broke down the sources of self healing and defenses and it didn't seem better than a lot of other builds in this thread. I also didn't say your build was worthless nor did I imply it for you to say i may as well have said so. I even think, although not one for this challenge, it's a decent support character! Even if you **feel** like I **could** have said that (which is what you said), that's not something I can control. I cannot control your thoughts or feelings. The only thing I can do is clarify things for you. So I just wanna make it clear I never said or implied it was worthless. I can understand being protective about something you built, but in the future, please avoid putting words in my mouth or assume what you did. I rather you ask me for clarity instead of making assumptions or appointing projections, I think it's nicer and more respectful.😊

You now what, you are right in that you have "shield," that's my bad in not counting it more, i guess i missed counting it since your build hardly gets to use it. Everything you mentioned is technically true, buuuuut isn't the whole story😐: you could generate temporary hp at the same time that you "Shield," assuming you spend your only hit die to do so (if you even have it still that day) and then roll an even number (the point is to have a hard to kill character on a more permanent basis, not on chance or on and off). Like when you spoke about "Preserve Life," it's technically true but in reality not as great as you make it sound. As for mostly healing a character to full, let's be honest and objective, that drops off immediately at level 2 and is irrelevant for any character that isn't the Regenerator himself in this competition. And you're right you do have "Absorb Elements," ***once per day****, from levels 16-20.

"Healing Spells" that specifically help you aren't that common or particularly useful once you level out of "Healing Word" until you get to 6th level spells and get "Heal" (which comes at the cost of a high level slot and your action). This makes the build really clunky and even less difficult to kill at several points in his career, leaving him vulnerable at times, instead of a more ongoing permanent hard to kill.

The build could have "Counter Spell," but that isn't the build you submitted and if you are just going to list variants to reference it defeats the point of making character building decisions at all. You chose for it to have "Hellish Rebuke," which you clearly rate highly but doesn't heal you, give you temporary hit points, reduce damage, or make you harder to hit. That's a big, big miss IMO. Can I ask, though, why are you bringing in something that wasn't part of your build, as though it is? I don't understand the point of doing so, if it isn't part of said build. But if you want to discuss options that aren't part of builds, I think that's better suited for a different thread or PM.

I also disagree with how you think Dexterity saving throws are not a problem because they are "mostly just damage, so you mostly just shrug them off." Damage is the most important thing to avoid where possible during your entire career as a Tank, especially as the Regenerator doesn't have a lot of hit points when you consider other builds submitted (also why I think you've gotten votes unfairly, maybe even biased towards you idk, but I know that quite a few of the submissions I read are harder to kill, making them more objectively deserving). In regards to total amount of hitpoints, there's 23 builds total in the competition if i counted right. The Regenerator sits in the middle with 11 builds having less hit points and 11 builds having more. Of the builds with less hit points, five of them are within 1-5 less hit points but have other abilities (like Arcane Ward, damage reduction such as Barbarian resistances, "Uncanny Dodge, " etc., **reliable** and even *spammable* sources of temporary hp, and so on).

Please have a look over your summary of the build, ignore any reference to healing others or healing you receive as a result of healing others, and then, if you are able to, objectively compare the build to other builds in this thread. The most noteworthy thing in comparison to other builds, is access to "Death Ward," (which, tbh, a Divine Soul Sorcerer would do better, but that's neither here nor there bc it isn't part of your build). What's frustrating is that your build is, by your own opening speech, more focused on healing and buffing others than itself, not a survivalist, hard to kill, not so much as a solo build **which is the challenge**, and really not as tanky as many others submitted, so the buzz generated is objectively unwarranted, esp. When looking at other builds

I'm not sure why my not liking Wizards much is relevant. I'm a big fan of Sorcerers and Warlocks. But again, irrelevant. Unless you mean that my not liking wizards warrants you to disagree on everything with me 😕

[Waazraath]

No, for a 1-v-1, you'd really want a full caster with Power Word Kill, or at least Disintegrate. Having a Simulacrum, like the bard can, really helps to overcome the constant hp replenishment via wild shape.

Ultimately, with 1-v-1's, you wind up with: DunDun-Dun-DunDun (Swords Bard) > Moon Druid > T-44 Tank (Artillerist Artificer) > DunDun-Dun-DunDun.

Given that there are 23 entries by now, I'm not too fond of comparing only a hand full... :smallconfused: Furthermore, I really wouldn't want to judge builds on how they perform 1 on 1 - that's a game on its own, and wasn't the challenge.

Having said that, my vote goes to the T-44: Tank - mostly cause it has the same concept as my own (trixie) :smallbiggrin: Artificer with gun(s), max saves, AC and hp. It outperforms my build with AC, mine outperforms this one with HP. The temporary HP battery is a strong addition to survivability, arguably on par with a steel defender, but less situational.

[Dork_Forge]

snipped for length

Thank you for the summary (I don't want to get into it, but tend to agree with it) and break down of the hit point range amongst the submitted builds.

As for the thread as a whole:

Anyone that hasn't voted yet I'd like to remind of the suggested way of voting (quoting the build you want to vote for, snipping the content, and making it clear in text that it has your support). There's already a bit of a mixed bag in terms of build formatting but murky votes is a bigger issue. It doesn't take long to do but makes it a lot easier for me to count the votes accurately and may become a requirement of voting if most people don't follow it.

[AureusFulgens]

How tough to kill are you really if your team crumbles around you? In my ethos, a tank does not meekly stand by, confident in their personal turtle shell, waiting for the other 3/4s of their party’s action economy to die off. Thus, I have aimed not only to become very durable, but also to become the character who must die first in order to make anything stick to any of my allies. The unselfish terminator who shares their terminator-ness.

To that end, I give you the everhealing juggernaut and high priest of Cyttorak, the Regenerator! Nobody in the party dies until you do, and you... just… won’t... die!

The Regenerator

...

Shouting "LIVE, INSECT (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbwgfJ_JjE)" when healing allies is optional.

I appreciate the unique approach, and I have a soft spot for the Cleric. Not to mention I like the team-focus aspect.

This one gets my vote.

[Dork_Forge]

T-44: Tank


Has my vote: AC, HP, Saves, at 0 protections, ways to deal with statuses and and spammable temp hp hits pretty much every box I can think of and tried to hit with my own build.

[Dork_Forge]

To all build contestants interested I am considering running a limited number of the candidates through a a simulated adventuring day to see how they hold up in pseudo play. This will involve 6 encounters with 2 short rests against different enemies. There will be no damage done to the enemies, damage will just be calculated against your builds for at least 3 rounds (the average) with at least two encounters lasting longer. Encounter difficulty will lean towards deadly for hopefully obvious reasons.

All those interested please PM me, no more than one build per person will be considered for simulation.

[HPisBS]

What are you proposing, exactly? To get together on Roll20 or whatever and play through a few rounds?

[Dork_Forge]

What are you proposing exactly? That we get together on Roll20 or whatever and play through a few rounds?

My initial idea was to construct 6 hard/deadly encounters with a short rest between each two encounters. Then have whatever that encounter is try and wail on each build for an average of 3 rounds (at least two for a little longer), the build's resources will be used entirely defensively and just have to survive all of the encounters.

[1Pirate]

-snip-

Regardless of voting outcome, you should put this in your ECoFEB thread.

[Skylivedk]

My initial idea was to construct 6 hard/deadly encounters with a short rest between each two encounters. Then have whatever that encounter is try and wail on each build for an average of 3 rounds (at least two for a little longer), the build's resources will be used entirely defensively and just have to survive all of the encounters.

Sure, please do. Resilient Sphere and counterspell ought to take you far :) many monsters with dispel magic will be a problem.

@total hp: can you share the whole comparison in depth? It sounds like a great piece of work. How did you count stuff like regenerate?

[Dork_Forge]

Sure, please do. Resilient Sphere and counterspell ought to take you far :)

@total hp: can you share the whole comparison in depth? It sounds like a great piece of work. How did you count stuff like regenerate?

I'm confused, you mean to use those spells against the builds?

...is this even meant for me?

[Skylivedk]

I'm confused, you mean to use those spells against the builds?

...is this even meant for me?

No for when you run SkyNet through

[Dork_Forge]

The Simulation is now full, the following builds will be run through the gauntlet:


HPisBS' T-44 Tank
SociopathFriend's The Resistant
Waazraath's Trixie and her loyal Canis Terminus
My own The Wolverine (T-1000)
Dualswinger's Celestial Glowman
LudicSavant's The Regenerator
Skylivedk's Skynet


If anyone would like to control their own builds in the simulation please PM me, if someone would be interested in controlling a build that the submitter is not controlling then also please contact me.

[SociopathFriend]

The Simulation is now full, the following builds will be run through the gauntlet:


HPisBS' T-44 Tank
SociopathFriend's The Resistant
Waazraath's Trixie and her loyal Canis Terminus
My own The Wolverine (T-1000)
Dualswinger's Celestial Glowman
LudicSavant's The Regenerator
Skylivedk's Skynet



Huh, well I don't expect a victory but nonetheless am interested in how it ends up comparing.

[Dork_Forge]

Huh, well I don't expect a victory but nonetheless am interested in how it ends up comparing.

Your guy was nominated, if you want to control them throughout the Gauntlet then please just let me know, otherwise any tips for how you'd go through your resources would be appreciated so we can capture what you intended most accurately.

[N7Paladin]

Now, here's one that just doesn't get hurt in the first place - a literal walking tank - complete with multiple "guns:"

T-44: Tank

Level 20 split: Artillerist Artificer 20

Race: Warforged

Stats: Str 12, Dex 14, Con 10 (12) →19 via infusion, Int 15 (16) → 20, Wis 11→12, Cha 10

My vote is for the T-44; a very nice, refined, and well-thoughtout build.


-----

@Sociopathfriend, I enjoyed looking over your Paladin multiclass and it's very tempting to use it in a campaign I've got coming:smallbiggrin: I hope that's okay

I look forward to seeing how it does in the simulation

[Dagda Mor]

-snip-

Has my vote. Always cool to see an unconventional, effective approach to the premise of the contest.

[Dagda Mor]

To all build contestants interested I am considering running a limited number of the candidates through a a simulated adventuring day to see how they hold up in pseudo play. This will involve 6 encounters with 2 short rests against different enemies. There will be no damage done to the enemies, damage will just be calculated against your builds for at least 3 rounds (the average) with at least two encounters lasting longer. Encounter difficulty will lean towards deadly for hopefully obvious reasons.

All those interested please PM me, no more than one build per person will be considered for simulation.
Sorry, is this a sideshow or are you saying this will somehow affect the outcome of the contest? Will our votes no longer determine the winner?

Also, what exactly is happening in these simulated encounters? Are you going to have every enemy attack target a random PC?

[HPisBS]

Sorry, is this a sideshow or are you saying this will somehow affect the outcome of the contest? Will our votes no longer determine the winner?

Also, what exactly is happening in these simulated encounters? Are you going to have every enemy attack target a random PC?

It seems to be a bunch of "deadly encounters" where 1 or more powerful enemies unload on each solo entry. No entry build will have allies to rely on. No entry will even fight back -- only defend for a few rounds. Then, rinse and repeat with new opposition for the entry to withstand, with nothing but a short rest after every other encounter.

(I guess the opposition just... gets tired of throwing everything they have at the character when they realize they aren't landing enough serious damage on it or something lol)

[HPisBS]

Well, I can't vote for the T-44: Tank since it's mine, so I guess I'll just have to officially vote for the Moon Druid. Mainly because it takes special tools to bring down -- tools which half-casters like the Artificer ironically lack.


Just a Moon Druid

Level 20 level split: Circle of the Moon Druid: 20

Race: Yuan-Ti

[SociopathFriend]

Your guy was nominated, if you want to control them throughout the Gauntlet then please just let me know, otherwise any tips for how you'd go through your resources would be appreciated so we can capture what you intended most accurately.

I was? Oh, must've missed that.

I intended to be a walking middle finger to magic and Saving Throws.
Your Spell Slots are never used for Smites. Defensive or Healing Spells are the name of the game.
Death Ward, Remove Curse, Lesser Restoration, Aid, Stoneskin*, Aura of Life, Cure Wounds, Shield of Faith, these are your Spells that will serve you well.
If you took Arcane Trickster then you can viably add Shield or Absorb Elements though the latter should only be used in scenarios your normal methods for Resistance will not suffice.

Make sure you don't use your Death Ward and Undying Sentinel at the same time. You explicitly get to choose whether you use the latter or not. You get at least two mulligans so make good use of them.

You've an automatic magic weapon, a gold hunk of hit points you can replenish, resistance you can apply to almost anything, conditional mobility to get out of being surrounded (Cunning Action, Misty Step*) and you're extremely difficult to incapacitate with magic.
Slow and steady wins the race.

*Oath of Ancient spells do not need to be prepared like the others.

[Dork_Forge]

Voting is now closed

[SociopathFriend]

Sorry, is this a sideshow or are you saying this will somehow affect the outcome of the contest? Will our votes no longer determine the winner?

Also, what exactly is happening in these simulated encounters? Are you going to have every enemy attack target a random PC?

I think it's more to see reality vs voted reality if that makes sense.
Your votes would still determine the winner but there's going to be a sort of, "Hard data" run to see which ones held up best.

That or Dark_Forge wants to steal all the builds for a campaign and so solicited us to provide ideas and now he's going to test them himself against what he plans to run up against.

[HPisBS]

Imagine your group playing the typical hodgepodge of adventurers, and then you come up against a lone humanoid figure that you apparently just can't scratch, like the Tank... or even that you can hurt, but that just heals right back up on its next turn while still attacking you like the Wolverine.

Yikes.

[SociopathFriend]

Imagine your group playing the typical hodgepodge of adventurers, and then you come up against a lone humanoid figure that you apparently just can't scratch, like the Tank... or even that you can hurt, but that just heals right back up on its next turn while still attacking you like the Wolverine.

Yikes.

I'm more imagining an entire party comprised of these builds and how the DM would need to bring some fairly potent firepower to possibly lay them all out since many of these builds would also be fairly good at helping allies recover.

I know one of my DMs didn't have a fit but rather was clearly happy/infuriated at how a Life Cleric in the last campaign I was in provided just so much healing that most of the party was playing horribly but was just tanking the hp loss via attrition.

Granted we still had like half the party killed but it very easily could've been either a TPK or close to it.

[Skylivedk]

I think it's more to see reality vs voted reality if that makes sense.
Your votes would still determine the winner but there's going to be a sort of, "Hard data" run to see which ones held up best.

That or Dark_Forge wants to steal all the builds for a campaign and so solicited us to provide ideas and now he's going to test them himself against what he plans to run up against.

There is no spoon nor reality in magic elf games. We are kidding ourselves if we take 6 random generated encounters played by one person to be any objective measure of these builds. I find it a fun test, but minor variables can have huge consequences: encounter type (mindflayers wreck one build and barlguras wreck another), sequencing of the encounters, start range, initiative counts, pre-buffs, terrain, level of preparation, flee range (when have you done too much avoidance) etc.

T-44 Tank (really messes with me that there's two T-44s) is a fantastic tank. It gets stopped fairly easily with Walls, Forcecage etc.

I also really like the Caster's Bane, and I think it gets less votes due to it being a disliked combination of classes.

Anyway, I look forward to seeing the next Throwdown and be inspired :)

[HPisBS]

T-44 Tank (really messes with me that there's two T-44s) is a fantastic tank. It gets stopped fairly easily with Walls, Forcecage etc.

Stopped =/= Killed. Not even hurt.

Just... delayed.

[LudicSavant]

Stopped =/= Killed. Not even hurt.

Just... delayed.

How would it deal with the "Dragon Cooker" Skylivedk mentioned, e.g. 10 minute AoE + Forcecage? Prior to level 20 / Soul of Artifice.

[HPisBS]

Dispel Magic on the AoE DOT.

As for Sickening Radiance, specifically, it relies on Con Saves. Prior to lvl 20, Con Saves are up to +12. At lvl 20, it's a full +18, making it literally impossible to fail unless the caster has an item like the Robe of the Archmagi to raise the DC above 19.

[SociopathFriend]

I don't have the time to play through myself as we're remodeling but I definitely look forwards to seeing how the 'gauntlet simulation' so to speak goes.

[LudicSavant]

Dispel Magic on the AoE DOT. Yep, sounds about right. I'd do the same (either that or teleport out).


Globe of Invulnerability
Where are you getting GoI from?

[HPisBS]

Where are you getting GoI from?

Whoops. Resilient Sphere.

(It was correct in the 4th level spell mentions, but I misremembered in the summary.)

[Dork_Forge]

The winner is Ludic Savant's 'The Regenerator'

[Dork_Forge]

Has my vote. Always cool to see an unconventional, effective approach to the premise of the contest.

{Scrubbed}


Sorry, is this a sideshow or are you saying this will somehow affect the outcome of the contest? Will our votes no longer determine the winner?

Also, what exactly is happening in these simulated encounters? Are you going to have every enemy attack target a random PC?

It has no bearing on the outcome of the contest and was suggested by a user that something like this could be fun. Each build with fill face a 6 encounter day (with two short rests) where they simply have to survive. There will be no party, the focus of the enemy will be solely on the build at hand, all resources and action economy are to be used defensively (no damage is done to the monster), each encounter will last 3 rounds (with two lasting longer than that). These encounters will be rolled out on Roll20 and when done (it will probably take a little while) results will be posted here as each build completes the Gauntlet.

[Dagda Mor]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}
You should be, I'm pretty great.

Gauntlet sounds interesting, looking forwards to seeing the reports.

[Skylivedk]

Yep, sounds about right. I'd do the same (either that or teleport out).


Where are you getting GoI from?

T-44 is ironically easier to cook with other spells (flaming sphere, storm sphere, wall spells). The lack of counterspell makes dispel magic hard to get off against casters. Still, outside my DM giving every damn dragon spell-casting, it ought to be a very niche case. Our play experiences are probably pretty vital in how we vote.

Also, I see n7paladin not accepting variants. That is personal, right? I don't remember anything about it in the OP and easy alternatives to fit a build into the campaigns I play, are definitely a plus in my book.

[Dork_Forge]

Also, I see n7paladin not accepting variants. That is personal, right? I don't remember anything about it in the OP and easy alternatives to fit a build into the campaigns I play, are definitely a plus in my book.

For guides and advice having other options/variants of a build to make it suit certain groups and campaigns is very helpful, for a contest it should really be as specific as possible, otherwise it's like laying out a menu of options rather than making hard build choices for people to evaluate and vote on.

[HPisBS]

T-44 is ironically easier to cook with other spells (flaming sphere, storm sphere, wall spells). The lack of counterspell makes dispel magic hard to get off against casters. Still, outside my DM giving every damn dragon spell-casting, it ought to be a very niche case. Our play experiences are probably pretty vital in how we vote.

Dispel Magic is still your friend. Let's walk through it for a sec. I'll assume one of the goals of that "cooker" is to kill as resource-efficiently as possible. I'll also use a "Terminator" that actually intends to terminate a target, this time.

Round 1:
Evo Wizard: Heat Metal on T-44's half plate, dealing ~9 fire damage (to T-44's thp). T-44 fails to "drop" his armor, so now attacks at disadvantage.

T-44: Dispel Magic on armor. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks for ~ 13.5 force damage.

Round 2:
Evo Wizard: Heat Metal on T-44's half plate, dealing ~9 fire damage (to T-44's thp). T-44 fails to "drop" his armor, so now attacks at disadvantage.

T-44: Dispel Magic on armor, but Evo Wizard Counterspells. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks (¿at disadvantage?) for ~ 13.5 force damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard. T-44's Tiny Servant uses Shatter Storing Item to deal ~ 13.5 thunder damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard.

Round 3:
Evo Wizard: Fire Bolt (miss). ~9 fire damage from Heat Metal bonus action.

T-44: Frostbite for ~ 18.5 cold damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wiz. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks (¿at disadvantage?) for ~ 13.5 force damage (miss). Tiny Servant uses Shatter Storing Item to deal ~ 13.5 thunder damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard.

[LudicSavant]

Dispel Magic is still your friend. Let's walk through it for a sec. I'll assume one of the goals of that "cooker" is to kill as resource-efficiently as possible. I'll also use a "Terminator" that actually intends to terminate a target, this time.

Round 1:
Evo Wizard: Heat Metal on T-44's half plate, dealing ~9 fire damage (to T-44's thp). T-44 fails to "drop" his armor, so now attacks at disadvantage.

T-44: Dispel Magic on armor. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks for ~ 13.5 force damage.

Round 2:
Evo Wizard: Heat Metal on T-44's half plate, dealing ~9 fire damage (to T-44's thp). T-44 fails to "drop" his armor, so now attacks at disadvantage.

T-44: Dispel Magic on armor, but Evo Wizard Counterspells. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks (¿at disadvantage?) for ~ 13.5 force damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard. T-44's Tiny Servant uses Shatter Storing Item to deal ~ 13.5 thunder damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard.

Round 3:
Evo Wizard: Fire Bolt (miss). ~9 fire damage from Heat Metal bonus action.

T-44: Frostbite for ~ 18.5 cold damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wiz. Protector Cannon refreshes ~ 9.5 thp and Force Ballista Cannon attacks (¿at disadvantage?) for ~ 13.5 force damage (miss). Tiny Servant uses Shatter Storing Item to deal ~ 13.5 thunder damage -- cue DC 10 Con Save for Evo Wizard.

Why does this Wizard have Heat Metal on their spell list?

[HPisBS]

Why does this Wizard have Heat Metal on their spell list?

... Wow, they really don't. lol

[Kane0]

Can get it from cheesy background though

[LudicSavant]

... Wow, they really don't. lol

Also, what level is this happening at? It's gotta be at least 15th level since you have both protector and ballista.

Is there some reason that they decide not to clear your minions (turrets and tiny servants) on round one?

Or why they keep casting Fire Bolt at an armored foe?


Can get it from cheesy background though

Yeah, you can get it from Izzet Engineer.

[HPisBS]

Also, what level is this happening at? It's gotta be at least 15th level since you have both protector and ballista.

Is there some reason that they decide not to clear your minions (turrets and tiny servants) on round one?

Or why they keep casting Fire Bolt at an armored foe?



How targetable would you say a tiny object - which doesn't occupy a space, and is probably either riding on your shoulder or carried in your hand - should be? I'm not even sure how aoes should interact with that, especially when so many such spells and effects specify "objects that are not being worn or carried." (Though, honestly, it'd still have 100 hp, so it may not actually be the smartest move to focus on it instead.) And, besides, Heat Metal's debuff presumably applies to the cannon's attack rolls.

The protector can safely be on the inside of the shield (full cover) and do its thing.

The Tiny Servant could presumably be hanging out there, too, and only pop out when casting using the spell storing item on other targets. (If the stored spell is Cure Wounds or similar, it can definitely stay on the inside of the shield.)


I had the enemy use Fire Bolt once, just because it's one of the highest damaging cantrips, and because the only Dex save cantrip I could think of was Create Bonfire.

[LudicSavant]

How targetable would you say a tiny object, which doesn't occupy a space, and is probably either riding on your shoulder or carried in your hand, should be?

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't be easily targetable by, say, Chain Lightning. At a very minimum the Spell Storing servant would be gone, though removing the 100hp turrets on round 1 isn't outside the realm of possibility for a high level Evoker. Though they could certainly decide to do something else. Shrug


Though, honestly, it'd still have 100 hp

So this at level 20 w/ Soul of Artifice and their 1-hour stuff up, vs a person just casting L2 Heat Metal twice and Fire Bolt. Correct?


I had the enemy use Fire Bolt once, just because it's one of the highest damaging cantrips, and because the only Dex save cantrip I could think of was Create Bonfire.

My bad! You're right, you only said they used it once. I should have asked why they are casting Fire Bolt, rather than why they keep doing so. It's just mathematically not a very good cantrip choice for a high level Evoker to use, especially vs an armored foe, so I just was wondering if there was any reason.


The Tiny Servant could presumably be hanging out there, too, and only pop out when casting using the spell storing item on other targets. (If the stored spell is Cure Wounds or similar, it can definitely stay on the inside of the shield.)

Personally I wouldn't count on being able to do that at all. It's like saying you're gonna tape a cat to the inside of your shield and not have it hinder your ability to use said shield, and not have anyone see it while you're using your shield in a normal fashion (especially in a game without facing rules).

[HPisBS]

There's not much limitation on what a Tiny Servant can be. It could be anything from a little doll to just a piece of rope; so long as the form is capable of grasping and waving a dart, it works.

I had the enemy use Heat Metal because.... well, crap. I could've sworn that was the first spell mentioned on the comment I was responding to. Whoops. But it also seemed more effective than the other ones that were listed, since it doesn't have to overcome the Tank's crazy high AC or saves to be fully effective.... Then again, the enemy likely wouldn't know the extent of the Tank's defenses, so that probably shouldn't actually factor into their round 1 choices.

It being 2nd level was mainly because I just habitually cast all my spells at their lowest levels so they don't prevent me from casting my higher level spells later. And because I assume part of the goal was to be "as resource-efficient as possible." That's also why I had the enemy follow up with the cantrip while the concentration spell was still up.

[Dork_Forge]

There's not much limitation on what a Tiny Servant can be. It could be anything from a little doll to just a piece of rope; so long as the form is capable of grasping and waving a dart, it works.

I had the enemy use Heat Metal because.... well, crap. I could've sworn that was the first spell mentioned on the comment I was responding to. Whoops. But it also seemed more effective than the other ones that were listed, since it doesn't have to overcome the Tank's crazy high AC or saves to be fully effective.... Then again, the enemy likely wouldn't know the extent of the Tank's defenses, so that probably shouldn't actually factor into their round 1 choices.

It being 2nd level was mainly because I just habitually cast all my spells at their lowest levels so they don't prevent me from casting my higher level spells later. And because I assume part of the goal was to be "as resource-efficient as possible." That's also why I had the enemy follow up with the cantrip while the concentration spell was still up.

Heat Metal (especially upcast and with Counter Spell to defend its casting) is probably one of the best ways to deal with most of our builds (especially anything that relies on healing or temp hp generation), it makes the good ol' Bear Barbarian shine in one regard.