1v1 Scenarios

[Jon talks a lot]

I'm obviously inspired by the thread about the Monk v. Cleric, so I kind of wanted to expand on that and offer some other possibly 1v1s for us to talk about.
For clarification's sake, all of these fights will take place in 1000 by 1000 square foot arena, and the duelists will start 200 ft from each other. You can use whatever subclass you think best, and any rules published by WotC. All at level 20 as well.

Fighter v. Barbarian: Two of the classic martials duel it out. Who comes out on top?

Druid v. Artificer: Nature versus machine

Ranger v. Rogue: The two stealth classes.

Paladin v. Warlock: Divine wrath versus infernal dealings.

Wizard v. Sorcerer: 5e's dump stat fights 3e's dump stat.

Bard v. Your choice: Can the bard beat any of them?

[kaervaak]

Druid vs Artificer is a blow out for Moon Druid. I don't think there's anything short of bag of holding shenanigans that an artificer can do to get through infinite wild shaping.

Wizard vs Sorcerer probably goes to whoever wins initiative. War and Chronurgy wizards have big initiative boosts, so they likely win.

Paladin vs Warlock probably goes to Genie Warlock since they can cast wish. Simulacrum or Druid's Grove would wreck this kind of arena challenge.

[LudicSavant]

Bard v. Your choice: Can the bard beat any of them?

If anything, I would expect the Bard to be one of the strongest performers with a genuinely optimized level 20 build. They can pick the best spells off any list, including game changers like Contingency and Simulacrum and Wish.

It’s honestly difficult for any of the classes that can’t produce those kind of spells to compete with the optimization ceiling of any classes that can.

[Foxhound438]

Fighter v. Barbarian: Two of the classic martials duel it out. Who comes out on top?


Sharpshooter eldritch knight with Fly or similar. Barb could take eagle and try to run up to the fighter, but unfortunately has a hard cap on how high it can go up, but at this starting distance a fighter can start with fly and get high enough to not worry. It'd take a lot of arrows to actually finish the barb, but even the *unkillable* zealot can be brought to 0 and three failed death saves and then wait until their rage ends.



Druid v. Artificer: Nature versus machine

Not that I find moon druids particularly impressive, but I don't see anything artificer has that could consistently beat down infinite HP. The artificer can fly up to avoid close encounters against some wild shapes, but air elemental form is in fact valid for moon druids, and the druid has a lot of high power ranged spells anyways. I'd like to be proven wrong about this, as I like artificer mechanically and kind of don't like moon druids in general, but I won't hold my breath.


Ranger v. Rogue: The two stealth classes.

In a white room scenario, stealth is only useful if you're using invisibility, which both get but ranger has more higher level spell slots to use it with. Rogue gets blindsense and elusive to counter some of the benefits of being hidden, but of course both being able to build specifically against the other I think ranger would consider taking Alert, observant, expertice in perception via a feat, and the blind fighting style to anti-stealth the rogue, who would also be taking some of the same things. At that point, the rogue would actually have to pick swashbuckler in order to get sneak attack damage (barring maybe grapple/prone on an athletics build, but I think ranger has counters to that as well). I would give this one to ranger, since after all the precautions against stealth are taken on both sides, the ranger can be concentrating on something to just get more damage.


Paladin v. Warlock: Divine wrath versus infernal dealings.

This one definitely gets complicated. The warlock probably has some access to flying (for example, true polymorph into a Pit Fiend and spam fireball, or just use the invocation levitate and spam eldritch blast), so the paladin (outside of Vengeance) has to use Find Greater Steed in order to get the benefits of most of their abilities. If the paladin can precast that, or at least survive long enough to cast it, there's some kind of contest, but a TP warlock can transform into a good many things that have faster flying speeds than the FGS mounts have. I'd give this to the lock in general, but the paladin definitely has tricks that could flip it in his favor. If nothing else, an Ancients paladin with a longbow and a crapload of arrows would be able to give almost any warlock a run for their money.


Wizard v. Sorcerer: 5e's dump stat fights 3e's dump stat.

Probably wizard, just on the back of how broken Portent is. A good few save or suck spells can kill either, and whether the wizard rolls high or low on their portents it's going to be a huge leg up. Plus the fact that the wizard's spell list at this point is missing something like two or three low level spells that only sorcerers get, so any trick the sorc can do the wizard can do just as well or better.



Bard v. Your choice: Can the bard beat any of them?

I Wish the bard could win

[LudicSavant]

Fighter v. Barbarian: Two of the classic martials duel it out. Who comes out on top?

As far as I can see, a level 20 Eldritch Knight should be able to get the edge over any Barbarian.

Seriously, the Barbarian really has the cards stacked against them here. Rage Resistance? Shadow Blade ignores it even for the Bear-barians. Reckless Attack? You're really just giving the Eldritch Knight advantage when they hit you back harder than you hit (or, as the case may well be even with Advantage, miss) them. Zealot's alleged 'unkillability'? EK has a variety of ways to incapacitate until rage runs out. Even a level 1 Sleep spell will be sufficient to act as a "finisher" here. Damage output? Nothing the Barbarian can bring to that table is gonna be close to Action Surge.

The Barbarian's best hope is basically to be a Zealot and hope the Fighter didn't take a way to finish them off. But of course, nothing is stopping the Fighter from picking one of those finishers.


Paladin v. Warlock: Divine wrath versus infernal dealings. Genielock's Wish is gonna make this one hard for the Paladin. And even something like a Valkyrie Paladin is within the attack range of a sniper-lock build.


Wizard v. Sorcerer: 5e's dump stat fights 3e's dump stat. Wizard has Contingency, Simulacrum, Forcecage, etc etc etc etc. Sorcerer doesn't... though they can emulate this stuff to some extent with Wish (but this still has disadvantages; for example, a Wished-for-Simulacrum of yourself is going to lack a 9th level spell slot). Wizard also tends to have better late game subclass features, always-on effects from Spell Mastery, etc. I'd give the edge to the Wizard.


Bard v. Your choice: Can the bard beat any of them? Not only can they beat some of them, they can probably beat most of them, because Magical Secrets means they can pick up the big gun spells.