Buff Yourself

[5eNeedsDarksun]

I know D&D is a team game, but can relying on allies to buff as a key tactic can potentially lead to a TPK.
Imagine a deadly encounter with a party that includes a Sorcerer, a couple of martials, and another full caster. The Sorc twins Haste on the 2 martials and subsequently takes heavy damage, dropping hp to 1/2 and missing the concentration save. Suddenly 3/4 of the party are in big trouble; one caster is half dead and both martials are sitting ducks.
Yes, this is an extreme example, due to the Twin and the downside of Haste, but I do generally think that buffing yourself largely avoids this problem. If you do take a bad hit or miss a save the problem is restricted to one character. Further, many of the buffs available, like the previously mentioned Haste, will help a character avoid getting hit and/ or missing a save. So a Bladesinger, EK, or Bard with magical secrets that Hastes themselves is both somewhat protected and isolating the fallout. I think that's one of the reasons I like Gish characters as they can largely avoid this issue.
Prove me wrong.

[KorvinStarmast]

Prove me wrong. One word: barkskin. :smalltongue:

You picked an edge case. Haste has a nasty aftereffect.

If I bless three allies who are good at attacking, and I drop the con save, they do not get harmed they just lose the buff.

If I slow the enemy, which is a debuff, that's great for the whole party.

If I cast mirror image on myself, self buff, that's nice but I just spent a round not doing anything to help the party. Granted, I am likely to last longer unless the enemy has AoE spells or nails me with a debuff like Hold Person.

If I don't understand my class and its spells, and walk into danger without mage armor on, and then on round 1 cast mage armor (sorcerer, I've seen a guy in my group to this multiple times) - I buffed myself but I did it wrong. :smallyuk: Mage Armor lasts 8 hours. Buff one's self as one enters more dangerous areas is the better idea.

If I buff our hexblade with foresight (9th level spell) it lasts for 8 hours and he's a freaking killing machine who is hard to hit: he ends up doing stuff my lore bard simply cannot. Likewise with our paladin.
When I buff my ally with Freedom of Movement all of a sudden they can't be held nor slowed. And No Concentration. (I can DD out if I need to)

Bottom Line: who and when to buff is situational, your all or nothing, either or, premise is invalid.

[stoutstien]

Well let's see:
-Order cleric dropping a bless and granting a reaction attack.

- artificer using SSI and a familiar to hand on invisibly as an on demand buff/debuff.

- DS sorcerer twinning Prot G/E or shield of faith.

-wizard casting magic weapon so the barbarian can overcome resistance and the wizard can stay at a safe distance.

-wizard polymorphing the paladin for extra HP and to block a passage.

**The best parts of haste are defensive in nature so twinning it when the mobility isn't needed is just poor tactics.**

[Unoriginal]

Prove me wrong.

Alright.

Fact 1: a "Bladesinger, EK, or Bard with magical secrets that Hastes themselves" or another buff relying on Concentration is likely planning to be in melee, or at the very least in a situation where they make themselves an important target to take down by the opposition. Even if the buff helps with AC, saves or Concentration, being hit by *anything* has a chance to end the Concentration buff. Furthermore, a character that self-buffs and loses the buff is going to be in trouble, or at least more in trouble than if they didn't buff in the first place (since they now also don't have the buff, plus have expended ressources, plus whichever consequences for losing the buff ranging from "you're now in range of a fearsome opponent without any of the things that were helping you survive it before" to "you're even weaker than before the buff and in range of a fearsome opponent").

Fact 2: DnD being a team game, not only losing one member of the team is going to hurt the whole team, having to spend actions and ressources in order to avoid losing someone (or even just avoid risking losing them) is going to hurt the whole team as well. Hurting the whole team enough will result in a TPK. You cannot really isolate the fallout.

Synthesis of Fact 1 and Fact 2: A character who self-buff with any Concentration spell is deliberately creating a situation where they could be putting themselves in a vulnerable position, which puts the whole team in a more vulnerable position, which can lead to a TPK.

Corollary fact: a situation where buffer and buffee are separate means the opponents will have to deal with two or more separate PCs, which is more difficult than dealing with one PC.

Example (pretty extreme): In a situation where a Sorcerer casts Haste on two martials and do an effort to stay out of danger, the large majority of monsters will have to either focus on one PC (which is made more difficult by the other two), or spread their efforts on all three (which is going to be weaker/less likely to work/most costly in ressources and opportunities than if they focused on one PC). It is possibly a worthwhile gamble, but it is a gamble none the less (with even the best case scenario of the monsters all being able to target the Sorcerer before the martials can do anything having for potential result "the monsters fail to make the Sorcerer drop the Concentration on time and now they have two Hasted martials that are going to act").

In a situation where an EK is self-Hasting, the opponents can just focus on the EK and take care of both the buffee and the buffer at once. If the EK "subsequently takes heavy damage, dropping hp to 1/2 and missing the concentration save", then not only the EK will be at half-health, they'll *also* be a sitting duck. Which is considerably worse than having 3 PCs with one at 1/2 HP and two sitting ducks, since once again the enemies can just focus their efforts on the EK rather than spread the efforts. Which means the team will have to help the EK survive, which will cost them ressources and actions and opportunities, at least as much as if 1 caster was at 1/2 HPs and two martials were sitting ducks but likely more, which could make the difference between surviving or a TPK.


Conclusion: Relying on yourself to buff yourself as a key tactic can potentially lead to a TPK.

Granted, that applies less to self-buffs that don't require Concentration, but those usually come at the cost of whole class or subclass features, which is a different cost-benefit analysis.



Bottom Line: who and when to buff is situational, your all or nothing, either or, premise is invalid.

Indeed.

[Kenny_Snoggins]

I know D&D is a team game, but can relying on allies to buff as a key tactic can potentially lead to a TPK.
Imagine a deadly encounter with a party that includes a Sorcerer, a couple of martials, and another full caster. The Sorc twins Haste on the 2 martials and subsequently takes heavy damage, dropping hp to 1/2 and missing the concentration save. Suddenly 3/4 of the party are in big trouble; one caster is half dead and both martials are sitting ducks.
Yes, this is an extreme example, due to the Twin and the downside of Haste, but I do generally think that buffing yourself largely avoids this problem. If you do take a bad hit or miss a save the problem is restricted to one character. Further, many of the buffs available, like the previously mentioned Haste, will help a character avoid getting hit and/ or missing a save. So a Bladesinger, EK, or Bard with magical secrets that Hastes themselves is both somewhat protected and isolating the fallout. I think that's one of the reasons I like Gish characters as they can largely avoid this issue.
Prove me wrong.

I think part of the problem with this analysis is that Haste is just, not a very good spell. It's almost always better in my experience to cast Slow or Polymorph rather than Haste. Or Bless, Aid, Crusader's Mantle, I mean, almost anything. Haste is really bad. If you're a full caster, the trap with buffing yourself is that you will probably get less value from the spell than if it was applied to someone with multi-attack, and if you drop concentration, you're in very serious trouble, whereas if your concentration gets dropped while focusing on Polymorph on the Rogue, or something, they aren't necessarily getting wailed on so probably have some option to get out of trouble. When you cast on yourself, you remove that uncoupling and put yourself in a dicey situation. Also you concentrate the threat into one PC, instead of spreading it out.