Level 5 Assistance

[Arsunick]

Hi Everyone!

I have asked for some help before here but nothing really of this nature. I have a friend who wants to do a coliseum style fight night where a large group of us takes on monsters in an arena setting. All official source materials are allowed including Tasha's Cauldron. After talking to a few friends it looks like I can safely focus on pure damage per round. We have no idea how many rounds, how many monsters, the CR or really anything specific outside of what I have said so far. I usually try to maximize the potential of my characters but never just pure damage per round. With that in mind I am here for help! Suggestions for pure DPR class combos! Please help! I have until Friday to get this built!

Thanks everyone!

**Update: He has decided to NOT allow any Critical Role material but UA IS ALLOWED.

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I'd say don't overlook initiative. DPR is great, but if you attack first you get off double the damage when your opponent has attacked once. That might end the fight or at least severely cripple them.

[Arsunick]

I'd say don't overlook initiative. DPR is great, but if you attack first you get off double the damage when your opponent has attacked once. That might end the fight or at least severely cripple them.

I 100% agree I don't enjoy a low initiative no matter what I am playing. I think there are probably a few ways to do some HIGH DPR and still have a good initiative!

[Bilbron]

Hi Everyone!

I have asked for some help before here but nothing really of this nature. I have a friend who wants to do a coliseum style fight night where a large group of us takes on monsters in an arena setting. All official source materials are allowed including Tasha's Cauldron. After talking to a few friends it looks like I can safely focus on pure damage per round. We have no idea how many rounds, how many monsters, the CR or really anything specific outside of what I have said so far. I usually try to maximize the potential of my characters but never just pure damage per round. With that in mind I am here for help! Suggestions for pure DPR class combos! Please help! I have until Friday to get this built!

Thanks everyone!

**Update: He has decided to NOT allow any Critical Role material but UA IS ALLOWED.Alert + Blindfighting + Eversmoking Bottle (or Pyrotechnics) and you will annihilate enemies all day long.

[Bobthewizard]

Alert + Blindfighting + Eversmoking Bottle (or Pyrotechnics) and you will annihilate enemies all day long.

Neat idea. Eldritch knight could do this at level 3 without a magic item using fog cloud. It's a pretty big area and lasts for an hour, but you can't move it.

At level 5, I would guess that your best DPR is a variant human gloom stalker revised ranger with both crossbow expert and sharpshooter using a hand crossbow. Great initiative, 4 attacks in the first round at -5/+10 for low AC opponents, extra 1st round movement to stay away from melee enemies. Add hunters mark for extra damage when you can set it up.

[solidork]

Would you rather play a simple character that does maximum damage, or would you rather have a more choices about what you do and still deal reasonable amounts?

[Arsunick]

Probably max damage as my teammates will be more utility. The gloom stalker sounds interesting as I’ve never thought of the ranger as a top dps.

[RogueJK]

Gloomstalker also gets you Rope Trick, which might open the door for an impromptu between-bouts Short Rest to heal and reset Short Rest abilities for the party, while the next beasty stomp around the arena below confused about why it's alone.

(Might not make the crowd/proprieter/DM very happy, though.)


At Level 5, your best bet for long-duration DPR is going to be a build with 3 attacks per round, and a way to add bonus damage to those attacks that uses minimal expendable resources.

So the above Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker is a great example of that, using Archery fighting style to help offset the Sharpshooter attack penalty to apply +10 to damage on each of your 3x attacks per round.


One to consider if you'd rather do melee would be a Devotion or Vengeance Paladin with Polearm Master and Great Weapon Master, using Bless or your Channel Divinity to help offset the GWM attack penalty, and then occasional Smites to boost damage further (likely reserved for Crits to keep from burning through all your spell slots too early).

But depending on how many back-to-back battles you're facing, the Paladin will eventually run out of steam, because it is using some spell slot/CD resources. A totally "resource-free" version of that, ideal for very long stretches without rests, would be something like a Champion Fighter with Polearm Master, using Spear+Shield, with extra damage coming from the Dueling Fighting Style and the improved critical range. It's quite boring, but very dependable, since each and every round you'll simply be attacking 3x for d6+STR+2/d6+STR+2/d4+STR+2, with the monotony only broken up by the twice-as-frequent critical hits. While it won't have as high of potential DPR as the PAM/GWM Paladin, it can do solid damage all day long however long is needed, and both your AC and Attack bonus will be higher than the Paladin.

Or, you can just split the difference and do a Spear+Shield Dueling PAM Paladin, trading some damage for better AC/Attack bonus and longer staying power compared to the PAM/GWM Paladin, and trading the increased critical range for the occasional spell or smite compared to the PAM Champion.

[Ir0ns0ul]

In the spirit of what our folks said above, I’d recommend something simpler: vHuman Fighter Samurai following this build here ( https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24726630&postcount=582).

This build is actually a Shadar-Kai maximizing with SS and Elven Accuracy, but it only gets online at level 6. So you could try to do the same but leveraging vHuman.

[RogueJK]

In the spirit of what our folks said above, I’d recommend something simpler: vHuman Fighter Samurai following https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24726630&postcount=582]this ( [url) build here[/URL].

This build is actually a Shadar-Kai maximizing with SS and Elven Accuracy, but it only gets online at level 6. So you could try to do the same but leveraging vHuman.

That's not going to work at 5th level. (That specific build comes online a whole lot later than 6th level, since it relies on the 10th and 15th level Samurai abilities, plus the higher level Fighter's additional attacks and multiple Action Surges per rest. It's purely a "Level 20 burst damage thought experiment", not an optimized character from Levels 1-20, including at Level 5.)

At 5th Level, a Samurai can only use Fighting Spirit to get Advantage for 3 turns total per day. Those will run out quickly in extended arena battles. And at 5th, you haven't gotten any other combat-applicable Samurai abilities yet.

In addition, you can't utilize Elven Accuracy's Triple Advantage with a Human, since the feat is Elves Only. So even when you do get Advantage, it'd only be the usual two dice.


So with a Variant Human Samurai 5, for 3 turns per day you'd be slightly better than any generic Longbow Archer with Sharpshooter and Extra Attack, but that's it. The rest of the time you're making 2x Longbow attacks per turn, with no other subclass abilities to leverage.

A Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker gets you a lot more, most importantly a 3rd attack every round for another d6+DEX+10 damage, and their capabilities are usable over longer stretches since they don't rely on a tiny handful of Long Rest resources like Fighting Spirit.

[XmonkTad]

V. Human Gloomstalker with Xbow expert and Sharp Shooter does very well. Wisdom bonus to initiative, extra attack on round one, bonus action attack, archery fighting style to help offset the -5/+10 penalty. There's a lot to love here.

Worth considering is also the Berserker Barbarian with Great Weapon Master (any non-small race works). If we look purely at DPR in an arena setting this is probably the way to go. The exhaustion penalty is nasty if you're adventuring, but you can take one or even 2 levels of exhaustion before you're cooked. You don't have to frenzy every time you rage, so save it for a nasty fight. But Frenzy is basically the same as xbow expert, just with rage bonus damage and a bigger weapon. Reckless attack offsets the -5/+10 penalty, and you have resistance to common damage types. Not a bad option, just a heavy downside if you overuse frenzy.

[Gtdead]

I would try to play this like a "shield wall" type of party. Glaive PAM lock for Darkness that concentrates on Darkness, Alert+Res:CON Life or Forge Cleric for SG, Alert War Wizard for things like Grease, Maximilian's and Slow,

If you are to level up, I'd go for Paladin too for sure, probably conquest. Shield + Defense style with Shield of Faith as the go to so he can operate outside of the darkness if he wants to.

[Ir0ns0ul]

That's not going to work at 5th level. (That specific build comes online a whole lot later than 6th level, since it relies on the 10th and 15th level Samurai abilities, plus the higher level Fighter's additional attacks and multiple Action Surges per rest. It's purely a "Level 20 burst damage thought experiment", not an optimized character from Levels 1-20, including at Level 5.)

At 5th Level, a Samurai can only use Fighting Spirit to get Advantage for 3 turns total per day. Those will run out quickly in extended arena battles. And at 5th, you haven't gotten any other combat-applicable Samurai abilities yet.

In addition, you can't utilize Elven Accuracy's Triple Advantage with a Human, since the feat is Elves Only. So even when you do get Advantage, it'd only be the usual two dice.


So with a Variant Human Samurai 5, for 3 turns per day you'd be slightly better than any generic Longbow Archer with Sharpshooter and Extra Attack, but that's it. The rest of the time you're making 2x Longbow attacks per turn, with no other subclass abilities to leverage.

A Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker gets you a lot more, most importantly a 3rd attack every round for another d6+DEX+10 damage, and their capabilities are usable over longer stretches since they don't rely on a tiny handful of Long Rest resources like Fighting Spirit.

Fair points, but the main idea here would be Sharpshooter (vHuman) + ASI DEX (lvl 4) with Fighting Spirit to mitigate SS penalty and provide a reliable burst damage through Action Surge.

I agree that Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker sounds fine but in practice you’ll have a really poor To Hit if you leverage SS in every attack. If you took SS at level 4, your DEX is 16 (+3) and by level 5, you regular To Hit is +8 considering Archery FS. Factoring the penalty of SS, you’ll have +3 To Hit. I’m no math genius here and there are several DPR calculators, but I bet this would actually make you miss a lot. I even believe that Hunters Mark and no Sharpshooter would be better in this scenario, providing a more sustainable DPR in the long run.

However, I do agree that Fighting Spirit could be an issue in terms of resource management for an arena, so I recommend a mix of our two builds: vHuman Battlemater Fighter with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter, leveraging Precision Attack when needed and generating advantage through Trip Attack and shooting at point-blank.

[Wraith]

I think I'd be tempted by War Domain Cleric. You get Martial Weapons and an extra attack as a bonus action at level 2 (which, though it has conditions, is 3 levels earlier than Fighters and Paladin get their Extra Attack) which you can combo with Magical Weapon and other buffs do dish out some gnarly damage one-on-one a reasonable amount of times per day.

The important part comes at level 5 however when you pick up Spirit Guardians as a Domain spell. This spell guarantees some impressive DPS even under normal circumstances, but in an enclosed arena where groups of enemies are actively forced to approach you then it can just be unfair.

Take a high-damage weapon (Greataxe, Greatsword, Maul), a race with +STR and +WIS - like a Centaur - if you're not using Tasha's racial rules, or something with combat-buffing abilities if you are (Hobgoblin for Saving Face? Bugbear for Long-Limbed? etc) and there shouldn't be much that you can't beat down in fairly short order.

[Eldariel]

The best DPR on this level is probably that of a Druid. Any Druid, really; Moon could shift [though this is one of the weakest Moon Druid levels as they get to CR2 forms + magic weapons on level 6] and add a bit, while Shepherd is one level off its massive buff but still gets to grant THP and bonuses. But it's really hard to compete with a horde of Velociraptors ripping things apart. 8 Velociraptors each make two attacks at advantage at +4 for 1d6+2 and +4 for 1d4+2 or a total of 10 average damage for a total of 80 average single target damage if all do hit (and since they're all attacking at advantage, their hit chances are actually competitive with any PC of the level). And on this level you have the feat for Resilient: Con and potentially a second one for Warcaster so you won't be failing Con-saves any time soon.

Closest martial competitor would be a Vuman Battlemaster 5 with SS/XBE/Archery, which gets to hit for 5 hits at +3 for 1d6+13 damage each. Even if all hit (it does have Precision Attack and damage add-ons), it's still only looking at 82,5 damage - though of course you can add on-hits (but the realistic damage is much lower; however, doing Battlemaster math is too complex for me to bother with here). And Velociraptors get to do this every round for an hour while Battlemaster has only one Action Surge. And Druid action still wasn't accounted for. So want DPR? Be a Dinodruid. Land Druid for 3 Conjure Animals off Natural Recovery is a pretty decent option too.

Of course, Wizard/Divine Soul/Cleric with a horde of Skeleton toys is also pretty darn nice.


Fair points, but the main idea here would be Sharpshooter (vHuman) + ASI DEX (lvl 4) with Fighting Spirit to mitigate SS penalty and provide a reliable burst damage through Action Surge.

I agree that Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker sounds fine but in practice you’ll have a really poor To Hit if you leverage SS in every attack. If you took SS at level 4, your DEX is 16 (+3) and by level 5, you regular To Hit is +8 considering Archery FS. Factoring the penalty of SS, you’ll have +3 To Hit. I’m no math genius here and there are several DPR calculators, but I bet this would actually make you miss a lot. I even believe that Hunters Mark and no Sharpshooter would be better in this scenario, providing a more sustainable DPR in the long run.

However, I do agree that Fighting Spirit could be an issue in terms of resource management for an arena, so I recommend a mix of our two builds: vHuman Battlemater Fighter with Crossbow Expert and Sharpshooter, leveraging Precision Attack when needed and generating advantage through Trip Attack and shooting at point-blank.

Your intuition is mistaken: it's pretty much always worth it to use SS if you have Archery fighting style as a Gloomstalker. The reason is that the bonus damage is just that big; it doubles your average damage even with hunter's mark (1d6+3+1d6 = 10 average damage, which you get as a bonus from Sharpshooter) so it would have to halve your hit chance to not be worth it (that'd be going from "need 10 to hit" to "need 15 to hit" and if you e.g. have advantage due to being immune to darkvision, it'd still easily be worth it there - and few enemies on this level have 18 AC anyways).

[Houster]

Best melee consistent damage (not a million damage nova) is any barb with GWM and PAM(vhuman to get both). I think you would want totem(wolf) if you have at least one more martial with you.
Rage halves damage, adv. on demand through reckless, 3 attacks through PAM.

If you'll meet a lot of flying creatures though... that makes this build irrelevant.

If you nail 2 hits per round(pretty likely) you are looking at 30+ damage per turn. That's alot.

[RogueJK]

Your intuition is mistaken: it's pretty much always worth it to use SS if you have Archery fighting style as a Gloomstalker. The reason is that the bonus damage is just that big; it doubles your average damage even with hunter's mark (1d6+3+1d6 = 10 average damage, which you get as a bonus from Sharpshooter) so it would have to halve your hit chance to not be worth it (that'd be going from "need 10 to hit" to "need 15 to hit" and if you e.g. have advantage due to being immune to darkvision, it'd still easily be worth it there - and few enemies on this level have 18 AC anyways).

Especially considering you're also going from 2 Longbow attacks to 3 Hand Crossbow attacks. That's an additional chance to hit with the extra damage, or crit.


Best melee consistent damage (not a million damage nova) is any barb with GWM and PAM(vhuman to get both). I think you would want totem(wolf) if you have at least one more martial with you.
Rage halves damage, adv. on demand through reckless, 3 attacks through PAM.

While it puts up solid damage, Barbarian isn't totally consistent over extended periods, since Rage has limits. It's only usable for 3 combats per long rest at 5th level.

Outside of those 3 combats where you can Rage, you'll likely be doing less damage than the always-consistent Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker with XBE/SS. (Reckless may offset that; I'm sure someone has crunched the numbers.)

And your AC will be lower than a comparable Fighter or Paladin build, further hampered when you use Reckless.

[Houster]

While it puts up solid damage, Barbarian isn't totally consistent over extended periods, since Rage has limits. It's only usable for 3 combats per long rest at 5th level.

Outside of those 3 combats where you can Rage, you'll likely be doing less damage than the always-consistent Hand Crossbow Gloomstalker with XBE/SS. (Reckless may offset that; I'm sure someone has crunched the numbers.)

And your AC will be lower than a comparable Fighter or Paladin build, further hampered when you use Reckless.

Well I do not not know the gear level but half plate with 14 dex is 17 ac. No reason why that barb cant pull a shield and a hammer and drop the glaive if he needs the extra 2 ac- after those 3 rage are spent. If he does not, stay with the glaive.

Said gloomstalker after whittling down resources(like the barb) has similar ac and worse damage if the barb is still holding his glaive. SS with no consistent way to add adv. (Only has the +2 archery) is not guaranteed to generate more damage- when enemy ac is decent.

Of course there are situations when ranged is superior no matter what.

Really it's a question of combat amount and monster type.