The most damage resistances you can get without Rage or Magic Items

[nickl_2000]

So, I'm curious. If you were going to create a PC and wanted to resist as many damage types as possible, without raging or using magic items, what race and class would you please? How would you go about doing it?



The first one I can think of has 5.

Tielfling Storm Sorcerer with the infernal constitution feat.
Resist: Poison, Fire, Cold, Thunder, Lightning.

Small bonus points because you can also pick up the Protection from Energy Spell for Acid resistance as well.

[Sigreid]

I think a teifling with the feat that grants resistances and celestial warlock is about the most.

[Crucius]

Aasimar as a race gives the most resistances I think; Radiant and Necrotic.

[Sigreid]

Aasimar as a race gives the most resistances I think; Radiant and Necrotic.
There's a feat for Tieflings that gives hem cold, necrotic and poison in addition to their inborn ones.

[Foxhound438]

not sure if it's an oversight, but monk can get resistance to all except force at 18th

[stoutstien]

Is warding bond off limits?

[nickl_2000]

Is warding bond off limits?

It takes some teamwork, but that does certainly win for the most you can get. Its hard to beat "all damage"

[stoutstien]

It takes some teamwork, but that does certainly win for the most you can get. Its hard to beat "all damage"
Solo battlesmith or mark of sentinel artificers can pull it off with SSI and disposable minions after 11.

[Greywander]

The first one I can think of has 5.

Tielfling Storm Sorcerer with the infernal constitution feat.
Resist: Poison, Fire, Cold, Thunder, Lightning.
You also only need 6 levels in sorcerer to get this, too, so you could multiclass into something else for more resistances. Genielock (bludgeoning) or Celestialock (radiant) can get you another resistance for 6 more levels, or for 10 levels GOOlock can get you psychic resistance, while Fiendlock gets a floating resistance (except against magic or silvered weapons (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?611331-Fiendish-Resilience-vs-magic-weapons)). 10 levels in Necromancer wizard gives necrotic resistance.

I'm having trouble thinking of other classes that grant permanent resistances. There are some that give temporary resistance, e.g. monk's Empty Body, but since you're already excluding Rage it seems like we should exclude these, too. (Unless excluding Rage is simply because you want to cast spells.)

I also noticed that a tiefling Storm sorcerer with Infernal Constitution would have a lot of resistances, including several of the most common ones. I kind of want to see if I can work this into a dragonslayer build, since you'd be resistant to all breath weapons except acid, but I'm not sure what such a build would look like after 6 sorcerer levels.

[Brawnspear]

Level 7 Rune Knight Tiefling with Infernal Constitution, it's technically not raging for the hill giant rune invoking against Bludgeoning, Piercing and Slashing.
6 Levels of Storm Sorcerer for Thunder and lightning (and Protection from Elements to pick up that acid resist and Intellect fortress for psychic)
6 Levels of Celestial Lock gets you Radiant resist.
Still have 1 level left, pick up level 8 of fighter and Dungeon Delver, for resistance to traps :D.
Heavy Armor master for reduction of physical damage along with Rune Knight.

So that's Fire, Poison, Cold. Radiant, Thunder, Lightning and Traps all the time.
Physical 3 and resistance one fight per short rest
Acid or Psychic depending on spell slots.
Still have to worry about Necro and Force, but what I could think of for those were all 10 level choices (Fiend Lock and Necro Wizard)
Could always sub in 7 Ancient Pally levels for Spell resistance instead of Short Rest Physical from Rune Knight.

[Sigreid]

So if you know exactly what you're facing, eventually the feindish warlock gets the ability to resist any one thing he wants.

[Kane0]

Personally I'd go with Infernal Constitution Tiefling Storm Sorcerer blended with your choice of Warlock. That's 6 damage types passively, either Radiant (Celestial) or Bludgeoning (Genie) earlier at level 12+ or Psychic (GoO) or Floating (Fiend) later at level 16+
You can also pick up Absorb Elements, Protection From Energy, Intellect Fortress and Stoneskin this way to round out what you missed, plus pick up other more circumstantial methods like Resistance vs Spells (Ancients Paladin), vs Traps (Dungeon Delver) or B/P/S for a minute per short rest (Rune Knight).

And that's not counting other forms of mitigating damage that usually stack like Uncanny Dodge/Evasion, Heavy Armor Master, Deflect Arrows/Interception Fighting Style, Warding Bond, Abjurer Ward, any source of Temp HP, etc

[MrStabby]

Forge cleric gets non magical BPS resistance, so three there. Fire resistance/immunity as well, although that overlaps with tiefling whichgets the most. Infernal constitution of a tiefling gives cold and poison resistance added to their fire.

Abjuration wizard and Ancients paladin get resistance to damage from spells at higher levels - if these make up the majority of your elemental damage instances then this could be a pretty good source of overall resistance.

[Kane0]

Alchemist Artificer gets Acid and Poison at 15, but that probably isn’t worth pursuing.