The Basic Rules Cagematch Challenge [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-10, 08:53 PM

Preface--while this thought was sparked by the Vecna thread, it isn't about Vecna in particular. Instead, it's considering the question "what power level[1] do WotC balance their stat blocks for?" Note This is a thought experiment. Unless someone wants to actually try parts of it out. If so, feel free. But do please report back :smallbiggrin:

The goal of this thought experiment (I don't expect anyone to be bored enough to actually do it) is to examine if the stat blocks provided are "easy" because they're tuned for audiences other than forum optimizers or if they're just undertuned. I figure if a basic rules party can walk over things of CR 22+ in a full adventuring day, they're undertuned for anything. I'd say that the point at which the DMG challenge guidelines hold (not too easy, not too tough) is roughly what WotC's baseline is.

Other things that can be learned
1. if there's a notable difference between monsters from different books (say Fizban's is uniformly tougher at the same CR than the MM), then we can hypothesize that the baseline has not been constant.
2. If there's wide variance between monsters of the same CR from the same book, we can say that the balancing is not very well done.

The (hypothetical) challenge is simple, with several variants as to what party-building rules are allowed.

Build a four-person party using the rules specified in the variant you choose. All are level 20, using standard point buy[2]. For gear, you start with the gear provided by the High Magic entry in the DMG --
* 20,000 gp plus 1d10 × 250 gp,
* three uncommon magic items,
* two rare items,
* one very rare item,
* normal starting equipment.
Magic items cannot be purchased beyond what's provided, but spell components can be (out of the provided cash). Yes, wizards, spell scrolls you want to copy in count as magic items.

Starting with those, pit the party against each CR 20+ monster in CR order (picking however you want within a given CR) from the published 1st-party books (book selection of your choice). The arena is always a 300' cube with randomly distributed circular pillars ranging from 3' high to 300' high and ranging in width from 5' (diameter) to 15' diameter. The party and the monster appear in the center of randomly selected quadrants (which may put them adjacent).

After each successful fight, the party gets a short rest. When the adventuring day budget (160,000 xp) cannot the fit next monster, the party gets a long rest[3]. Continue until either the party is defeated OR all CR 20+ monsters are defeated.

Edit: the win conditions for each fight are either death (considered as taking a monster to 0 HP after any Mythic abilities or regeneration abilities are considered, not including a lich's rebirth-type effect) or force them to flee permanently (via planeshift, etc). No "dominate the monster and carry it ot the next fight" or even "convince the monster to work with you" strategies--this is a test of combat balance only.

The party does not have substantial downtime before the fight starts--they enter the arena 15 minutes after creation/start of the day, except for a couple tweaks:
1. Artificers (if using Easy Mode) can have their infusions prepped.
2. No chain-resting (finishing a long rest and then taking a short rest) allowed.
3. On the second and subsequent days, the party has whatever time is left after completing the day's battles as downtime. There is a shop that provides all mundane goods (at PHB prices), including healing potions. Food is provided.

Variants
1 Hard Mode: No content found outside the Basic Rules.
2. PHB, no variants: Anything from the PHB, not including any variant options. That means no feats and no multiclassing, among others.
3. Full PHB: Anything from the PHB
4. Easy mode: Any non-cheese (no wish-simulacra loops, one sim per caster).
5. Super Easy Mode: As Easy Mode, except you get a DMG treasure horde after each fight, randomly generated.

I bet that things are balanced somewhere around variant #1 or #2. More likely #2 than #1. And more likely #3 than anything else. That is, they don't assume that someone who buys <adventure X> has anything more than the PHB on hand and design their monsters and adventures with that benchmark.

[1] if any
[2] Tasha's rules are only in play for variants 4 and 5.
[3] Alternate rule: they get a full reset after each day (full HD, all lingering conditions cured, etc).

Dante

2022-06-10, 09:13 PM

The party does not have substantial downtime before the fight starts--they enter the arena 15 minutes after creation/start of the day, except for a couple tweaks:
1. Artificers (if using Easy Mode) can have their infusions prepped.
2. No chain-resting (finishing a long rest and then taking a short rest) allowed.
3. On the second and subsequent days, the party has whatever time is left after completing the day's battles as downtime. There is a shop that provides all mundane goods (at PHB prices), including healing potions. Food is provided.

I'll hazard a guess here that the strongest strategies are going to be snowballs that make you grow in power with every monster you defeat.

For example, Demogorgon gets a lot easier to kill if Geryon is already on your side.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-10, 09:18 PM

I'll hazard a guess here that the strongest strategies are going to be snowballs that make you grow in power with every monster you defeat.

For example, Demogorgon gets a lot easier to kill if Geryon is already on your side.

That should be specified (but wasn't). You actually have to kill or cause to flee permanently in each case to win. No "dominate monster 1 and carry it over to fight #2" strategies. This is a test of combat balance, not social manipulation. Not that you're likely to be able to dominate these stat blocks, since most have Legendary Resistances and really high saves. Plus magic resistance.

Dante

2022-06-10, 09:30 PM

That should be specified (but wasn't). You actually have to kill or cause to flee permanently in each case to win. No "dominate monster 1 and carry it over to fight #2" strategies. This is a test of combat balance, not social manipulation. Not that you're likely to be able to dominate these stat blocks, since most have Legendary Resistances and really high saves. Plus magic resistance.

It's easier than you think to enslave them, but okay, apparently that's illegal.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-10, 09:54 PM

It's easier than you think to enslave them, but okay, apparently that's illegal.

The goal is to evaluate the balance baseline for monsters in combat, not use meta-knowledge of the challenge structure. You can consider that the party doesn't know that they'll have more fights each time and certainly doesn't know what's coming next or anything about the stat blocks themselves beyond what they can observe.

And Geryon is CR 22 (so you've fought your way through a bevy of monsters to get there) with a +10 WIS save, 3 legendary resistances, and advantage vs spells. At level 20, you have a base DC of 19, meaning he needs a 9 to break free after all his Legendaries. He's also flat immune to charm, meaning Dominate Monster just outright fails (and is 8th level so you get max 2 per day, if you wish for the other).

I'm not seeing how it's so trivial to enslave him.

Dante

2022-06-11, 04:27 AM

The goal is to evaluate the balance baseline for monsters in combat, not use meta-knowledge of the challenge structure. You can consider that the party doesn't know that they'll have more fights each time and certainly doesn't know what's coming next or anything about the stat blocks themselves beyond what they can observe.

And Geryon is CR 22 (so you've fought your way through a bevy of monsters to get there) with a +10 WIS save, 3 legendary resistances, and advantage vs spells. At level 20, you have a base DC of 19, meaning he needs a 9 to break free after all his Legendaries. He's also flat immune to charm, meaning Dominate Monster just outright fails (and is 8th level so you get max 2 per day, if you wish for the other).

I'm not seeing how it's so trivial to enslave him.

It's not about metaknowledge, it's about snowballing and Combat As War. You don't need to know what's next to know that Geryon would be a good slave.

I didn't say "trivial" but yes, easier than you are making it out to be. If it weren't illegal I'd talk details, but the gist is: Planar Binding isn't charm and Legendary Resistance can be used up on plenty of other things before you start the binding process. (Heh. Like Harry Dresden and Ethniu, come to think of it.)

stoutstien

2022-06-11, 05:44 AM

I've done similar tests in the past and from what I can collect the base line for CR is roughly constant with a no optional rules party with moderately good tactics and planning. Obvious exception with features that add or remove major chunks of the given challenge. I'm halfway through comparing the new Vecna with the old and new Orcus blocks. Then I will do the same with and without lairs/regional effects. So far the environment is been the big impact factor. If Vecna has the ability to remove himself from the immediate area at least 1/3 of the fight he almost doubles his chances to Kill one kill one or even TPK a party.

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 06:34 AM

The big issue is that basic rules are less balanced than PHB only which in turn is largely less balanced than all sources. The more restricted you get, the more broken the broken options get. It seems to me like it would be optimal to disable the first opponent you can fit into Forcecage by casting Forcecage (lasts 1 hour). This buys you time to get your Simulacrums and Planar Bindings cast without wasting Wish on them. And the first humanoid you get is Magic Jar fodder for the Wizard, the second for the Bard. Of course you could just abuse True Polymorph to go even further but that's probably outside the spirit of this challenge. The party to go with is probably:
- Wizard (Evoker in basic rules, a fine subclass)
- Bard (Lore in basic rules, the best subclass)
- Druid (Land, not ideal but solid - Grassland, Coast and Underdark are all fine of which Grassland is probably the best)
- Cleric (Life, the best PHB subclass)

Of course Bard and Wizard are better than Cleric and Druid on this level but it's nice to round things out. Warlock is fine too; you get Fiendlock, which is probably the best PHB subclass, and without feats this is about the only option with a powerful at-will attack at 300'+ (for e.g. finishing off things inside Forcecage without the threat of 120' breath weapons or such). It would most likely replace Druid which is the most lackluster of these options on this level though it's still great. I can't just see the whole CR 20+ MM section having much of a chance once you get everything setup. You have plenty of Forcecages, which is fairly brutal vs. vast majority of the options, you've got Shapechange on two-three characters (though ironically the 1 hour duration of Shapechange is mitigated by the necessity of taking a short rest between fights; this party isn't really interested but it doesn't matter all that much - I guess they could use the short rest to craft Simulacrums and such). Outside the MM there are some more interesting things. Sul Khatesh would probably wipe the floor with this party and MToF would features some creatures that could be rough too. And the whole of Minsc and Boo's Journal of Villainy would likely be rough too.

With the given rules you'll probably end up with like Rock Gnome Wizard, Tiefling Bard, Hill Dwarf Cleric, Wood Elf Druid. All of whom have 20 casting stat and 20 Con by level 20 since they have little else to do with their ASIs. Getting a Paladin just to ensure they can't fail Concentration-checks is sort of appealing but the Cleric can just Planar Bind a Couatl and have Leadership + Bless up pretty much constantly which is +2d4 on all saves which should largely accomplish the same.

Dante

2022-06-11, 06:49 AM

... the Cleric can just Planar Bind a Couatl and have Leadership + Bless up pretty much constantly which is +2d4 on all saves which should largely accomplish the same.

Can you explain why the Couatl is needed (is it for the extra Bless?) and what "leadership" is in this context?

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 06:58 AM

Can you explain why the Couatl is needed (is it for the extra Bless?) and what "leadership" is in this context?

Couatl is basically the only creature accessible via Conjure Celestial. It knows Bless in any form and can concentrate on it. It also has Change Shape to access all CR4- humanoid forms. One of those is Knight, another Hobgoblin Captain. Both have an ability called "Leadership", which grants +1d4 to all allied checks within 30' of the user for 1 minute. It's a martial ability and doesn't require Concentration. So Couatl can stay in either form and cast Bless followed by using Leadership (it retains its casting in any form) for +1d4 each with Cleric free to Concentrate on bigger spells.

Dante

2022-06-11, 07:00 AM

Couatl is basically the only creature accessible via Conjure Celestial. It knows Bless in any form and can concentrate on it. It also has Change Shape to access all CR4- humanoid forms. One of those is Knight, another Hobgoblin Captain. Both have an ability called "Leadership", which grants +1d4 to all allied checks within 30' of the user for 1 minute. It's a martial ability and doesn't require Concentration. So Couatl can stay in either form and cast Bless followed by using Leadership (it retains its casting in any form) for +1d4 each with Cleric free to Concentrate on bigger spells.

Gotcha, thanks.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 08:04 AM

Consider also the flip side of this: you are writing an adventure for players
* without deep system mastery,
* who only own the PHB and don't want to read about feats or multiclassing,
* take the obvious ASIs (max primary, then a mishmash of secondary or Con or Dex),
* who choose classes, subclasses, and spells based on the assumptions that the fluff matches the mechanics, and
* whose idea of party balance is "wizard/sorc/warlock, cleric/druid, Str melee martial, Dex archer rogue/ranger".

(Note that your casters in particular are unlikely to use simulacrum, conjure <anything>, planar binding, animate dead, or magic jar. Side note: what else is on the pre-9th "shenanigans" spell list? Edited to add per suggestion: glyph of warding, animate objects, wall of force, forcecage, summon greater demon.)

Martials get their first magic weapon around 6th level, and the magic weapons are "trope-y": swords, daggers, bows.

How do you construct combat encounters that will challenge those parties without curb-stomping them, especially at high levels?

Does that change your perception of what is an appropriate high-CR creature?

Dante

2022-06-11, 08:12 AM

* who choose classes, subclasses, and spells based on the assumptions that the fluff matches the mechanics, and
...
Does that change your perception of what is an appropriate high-CR creature?

It certainly suggests that classes and monsters whose fluff doesn't match the mechanics need to be revised until they do.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 08:24 AM

It certainly suggests that classes and monsters whose fluff doesn't match the mechanics need to be revised until they do.

Part of that is that the existing "ground truth" for most participants is the existing PHB.

For example, you're designing your monsters to deal with parties like (off the top of my head) "Half-elf Dragon Sorc, Human Tempest Cleric, Mountain Dwarf Totem Barb, Lightfoot Halfling Thief Rogue", at all levels of play.

stoutstien

2022-06-11, 08:26 AM

Dante

2022-06-11, 08:33 AM

Part of that is that the existing "ground truth" for most participants is the existing PHB.

For example, you're designing your monsters to deal with parties like (off the top of my head) "Half-elf Dragon Sorc, Human Tempest Cleric, Mountain Dwarf Totem Barb, Lightfoot Halfling Thief Rogue", at all levels of play.

I agree, but that's not the point I was making. I would point to Champion Fighter as a prime example of a class whose fluff doesn't match its mechanics and badly needs a rewrite. What happens IME is that players are fine with Champion at first, but gradually they realize through experience how anemic it is and by that time they're stuck with a Fighter who has virtually no subclass features. It should be simple and good out of the box.

And yes, on a different subject, if that Dragon Sorc spends time learning Counterspell and then learns that he can't use it to prevent any enemy wizards from blasting him with magic, that fluff/mechanics distinction is also going to be unpleasant for him. (If he can prevent 60% of enemy wizards from blasting him with magic though he might be fine. It depends. Just definitely don't make them all immune!)

How do you construct combat encounters that will challenge those parties without curb-stomping them, especially at high levels?

If you use the Dungeon Checklist from https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2016/01/dungeon-checklist.html?m=1 the players will have had the opportunity to find their own answers to this question.

1. Rewards. "Treasure gives players a reason to go into the dungeon in the first place... remember that treasure doesn't need to be treasure."

2. Something to kill. Combat is fun.

3. Something to be killed by/avoid/run from. Always being the biggest fish in the pond is not fun and not challenging.

4. Multiple paths. More than one path though the dungeon (as opposed to a maze with only one correct solution) increases feelings of player agency and gives them more tools to solve problems.

5. Someone to talk to. Even if it's just a sobbing goblin or a manticore with a thorn in its paw. Combat shouldn't be the only interaction mode.

'There's almost no bloat--you don't need to invent new mechanics, and it takes almost no space to write "There is a goblin in a cage. His name is Zerglum and he has been imprisoned by his fellows for setting rats free."'

6. Something to experiment with. Read the blog post for examples.

7. Something to (probably) overlook. Blog has better examples than this, but I'll say that if you hide a Wand of Fireballs in the belly of a giant undead frog in an out-of-the-way location with the expectation that players probably won't cut the frog open and find it, it is so much more fun than if you put it there hoping that they *will*. Just grin your ghoulish DM grin when they skip that location, and let them assume you're grinning because they're walking into a trap.

Do this and by the time the Half-elf Dragon Sorc, Human Tempest Cleric, Mountain Dwarf Totem Barb, and Lightfoot Halfling Thief Rogue get to high levels, the players will have worked out a playstyle that lets them kill #2s and avoid/not get curbstomped by #3s. (Otherwise they won't get to high levels, which is okay too--high levels should be earned through player skill.)

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 08:48 AM

I agree, but that's not the point I was making. I would point to Champion Fighter as a prime example of a class whose fluff doesn't match its mechanics and badly needs a rewrite.

Oh, agreed. Just looking at PHB martial subclasses,
* Berserker Barb,
* Champion Fighter,
* Four Elements Monk, and
* Assassin Rogue
are way out of whack. I think most of the rest tell the "right" story and are within spitting distance of each other (without feats and multiclassing).

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 08:49 AM

(Note that your casters in particular are unlikely to use simulacrum, conjure <anything>, planar binding, animate dead, or magic jar. Side note: what else is on the pre-9th "shenanigans" spell list?)

The only other broken-in-half pre-9 spell I can think of right now is:
- Glyph of Warding (especially in conjunction with extradimensional spaces like Bags of Holding, Handy Haversack, Genie's Vessel or Demiplane)
- Animate Objects

Other spells that are probably not broken or shenanigancy but still way above the curve (pre-9):
- Wall of Force and Forcecage (not really shenanigans, just terribly designed to the point that they break vast majority of even CR 20+ encounters since most monsters have no means around these)
- Summon Greater Demon
- Polymorph (though its impact wanes higher up when 150 HP isn't really that big a deal)

Dante

2022-06-11, 08:54 AM

Oh, agreed. Just looking at PHB martial subclasses,
* Berserker Barb,
* Champion Fighter,
* Four Elements Monk, and
* Assassin Rogue
are way out of whack. I think most of the rest tell the "right" story and are within spitting distance of each other (without feats and multiclassing).

It bothers me *so* much that Berserker doesn't get any bonus attacks until the round after activating Frenzy.

I'm surprisingly fine with Elemonk but it certainly wouldn't hurt if, for example, they just knew *all* of the elemental disciplines in their PHB entry instead of needing to pick only two (eventually five). Would make it easier for casual players without changing much for intense players who think of themselves as "optimizers". Also a good excuse for DMs to let them improvise new disciplines in the fly, which adds to flavor.

- Summon Greater Demon
- Polymorph (though its impact wanes higher up when 150 HP isn't really that big a deal)

I think casual players are unlikely to realize how good these spells are, because in a vacuum, having your level 7 warlock summon a "CR 5" demon who might attack you doesn't sound that great. Five is less than seven, so it might be weak, in which case why bother? But if it's powerful then it might eat you, so why take the risk? I suspect casual players would only choose SGD for fluff reasons, for example a warlock whose player remembers the demon duel in David Eddings' Belgariad and wants a similar experience. (Which honestly is part of *my* bias towards the spell as well.)

Polymorph isn't so risky, but has to a certain extent the same vagueness issue about what exactly you can do with it and what "challenge rating" means. I suspect most casual players will either ignore it entirely or flip through the back of the PHB to see what "challenge rating" means, and since the PHB doesn't have a lot of monsters that do obviously impressive damage, will conclude that Polymorph is mostly for turning enemies into frogs or yourself into a bird or a fish. And in that context, it's decent but it isn't broken.

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 09:04 AM

And yeah, just to add substance to the "Basic Rules are wildly unbalanced", we have:
Barbarian: Berserker. Lol. Two subclasses and they just had to pick the ****e one.

Bard: Lore. Out of the Core options, this is ridiculously much better than its competitor and it's probably, after years of power creep, still the overall strongest Bard subclass in the game (though facing some tough competition from Eloquence; mostly Lore's advantage comes down to few absurdly good 3rd level spells Bard doesn't normally get)

Cleric: Life. Easily the best PHB subclass; incredibly efficient HP regeneration on the short rest recovery and good subclass features in general (though the fact that it doesn't get any of the good downtime healing spells in PHB only is kinda annoying, but the "Preserve Life" is so good that it doesn't really even matter.

Druid: Land. The only PHB caster that doesn't have a top tier subclass as its basic one. Still a solid one though.

Fighter: Champion. Lol. Look at Barbarian, same story, except here with basic rules even the bonus ASIs are largely disappointing so the class gets even worse.

Monk: Open Hand. Actually decent, by far the best PHB option and one that is even playable with all sources (though it's still a Monk).

Paladin: Devotion. A solid one, arguably even a great one. Not one of the best with all sources but definitely top tier of the PHB stock (though Paladin subclasses are pretty competitive with one another; here the difference isn't so stark)

Ranger: Hunter. Out of the PHB options, it's the less disappointing one.

Rogue: Thief. Miles below the top option (Arcane Trickster) but at least they didn't pick the trap option (Assassin) like with Fighter and Barbarian. Not a good one without feats or such though.

Sorcerer: Dragon. So out of the two bad options, they picked the one that's at least got abilities (Wild Magic basically doesn't do anything without DM paying constant attention to him). But the issues with the PHB Sorcerer are well established so I won't go there now.

Warlock: Fiend. It's the best PHB subclass by a fair margin and probably the only PHB subclass worth mentioning in outside PHB games. A solid subclass especially for a single-classed Warlock (even though those aren't that great as we all know).

Wizard: Evocation. Probably not the strongest PHB subclass (that would likely be Divination for 1-20 though Illusion and Necromancy have claims to fame around various points but Illusion picks up late and Necromancy really wants non-PHB options) but up there; an extremely solid mid tier option (though it too likes non-PHB options).

So...Fighter and Barbarian are the most screwed in basic rules vs. PHB by a country mile followed Rogue and probably Ranger/Monk, Sorcerer and Druid. Then we get to like Paladin, Wizard, and then Cleric and finally Bard getting their absolutely best options.

Basic rules only power scale assessed as full classes might look something like:

12. Berserker Barbarian
11. Open Hand Monk
10. Champion Fighter
9. Thief Rogue
8. Hunter Ranger
7. Dragon Sorcerer
6. Devotion Paladin
5. Fiend Warlock
4. Land Druid
3. Life Cleric
2. Lore Bard
1. Evoker Wizard

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 09:05 AM

It bothers me *so* much that Berserker doesn't get any bonus attacks until the round after activating Frenzy.

I'm surprisingly fine with Elemonk but it certainly wouldn't hurt if, for example, they just knew *all* of the elemental disciplines in their PHB entry instead of heavily to pick only four. Would make it easier for casual players without changing much for intense players who think of themselves as "optimizers". Also a good excuse for DMs to let them improvise new disciplines in the fly, which adds to flavor.

Oh, my only real pet peeves with Elemonk are that you basically can't afford the ki to use both your Monk and Elemonk features until mid tier 2 and that you don't get any extra features, unlike Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster. I think the recent "technology" of allowing a small number of free uses per long rest would have helped a lot.

Dante

2022-06-11, 09:11 AM

Basic rules only power scale assessed as full classes might look something like:

12. Berserker Barbarian
11. Open Hand Monk
10. Champion Fighter
9. Thief Rogue
8. Hunter Ranger
7. Dragon Sorcerer
6. Devotion Paladin
5. Fiend Warlock
4. Land Druid
3. Life Cleric
2. Lore Bard
1. Evoker Wizard

Good review, but nitpick: are you talking about the SRD instead of Basic? Basic only has fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric.

I should have mentioned this upthread but forgot.

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 09:25 AM

Good review, but nitpick: are you talking about the SRD instead of Basic? Basic only has fighter, rogue, wizard, cleric.

I should have mentioned this upthread but forgot.

Well, I went by "Basic rules" on Dndbeyond.

Dante

2022-06-11, 09:31 AM

Well, I went by "Basic rules" on Dndbeyond.

Interesting! Didn't realize DnDBeyond had its own definition of Basic.

PhoenixPhyre will have to clarify which Basic the OP refers to.

Oh, my only real pet peeves with Elemonk are that you basically can't afford the ki to use both your Monk and Elemonk features until mid tier 2 and that you don't get any extra features, unlike Eldritch Knight or Arcane Trickster. I think the recent "technology" of allowing a small number of free uses per long rest would have helped a lot.

True, low-level Elemonks are even more ki-hungry than Shadow Monks, while not getting as much bang for the buck.

I do however feel like Ki-Fueled Strike (one of the only Tasha's optional rules that I approve of) goes a long way toward fixing this. A 3rd level Elemonk who hits 3 out of 5 orcs in an encounter with 2d8+push (save for half) Thunderwave and then follows up with a d4+3 unarmed strike has just had a pretty good turn, better than Flurry of Blows would have given her. If you're a Mobile Monk as so many are, that bonus action attack also lets you get back out of melee afterwards (though orcs can pursue).

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-11, 09:43 AM

Basic rules is basic rules. 4 classes, 4 races. Specifically the official basic rules pdf.

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 09:49 AM

If we assume the WotC document only, it gets much, much harder. It lacks all the best high level spells: Forcecage, Simulacrum, Shapechange, True Polymorph, Wish, Wall of Force, etc. and the class pool gets pinched. It also lacks the anti-LR spells like Telekinesis and Bigby's. If you have to pick one of each you'll be down to two useful characters; your Champion hitting at best for 2d6+5 8x per turn (or if he's sensible, probably 1d8+5 with a bow since who wants to be a melee grunt) and the Rogue hitting for 11d6+5 might as well not be participating. And Cleric is useful to have defensively but doesn't output much offense-wise: you have Holy Aura, AMF & Spirit Guardians/Spiritual Weapon as the relevant spells (I guess you can and should probably upcast Inflict Wounds on high level once you have free actions), crucially lacking Conjure Celestial/Planar Binding.

The Wizard is still incredibly potent. A party of just 3 Wizards and 1 Cleric is largely comparable to the earlier DNDBeyond party minus the spells not available (though it would be interesting to play from a low level without any minionmancy; but probably doable with the amount of Sleeps and generic AOE CCs and explosions you can throw out at various levels). With Maze, Foresight/Meteor Swarm (2nd tier level 9 spells but still) and Gate (though this style doesn't give much chance to use it), Teleport (though same, it's a great spell but not for arena use), Wall of Stone (it can do a decent Wall of Force impression for blocking breaths and attacks and such), Magic Missile (and Empowered Evocation), etc. it's still incredibly solid all the way through. Magic Missile + Empowered Evocation can put in some work and having the option of dropping 3 Meteor Swarms in case you really just need for something to disappear is fairly impressive. Having the Cleric means the characters will have access to Aid, Death Ward, all the basic restoration and resurrection powers, Holy Aura/AMF if needed and tanks beautifully with the usual Spirit Guardians setup. Of course, only one Cleric means you can't really have the Cleric going down (though you can get healing pots for everyone easy enough, but lacking familiars means the action cost is very real).

If you need to deal with a magic immune enemy or an enemy using an AMF, the best bet is either to Divine Intervention it away or to Gate in something that can deal with it and hope that it will agree to (of course, you can pick what you call so if call in a Solar or something to fight a fiend, it's probably inclined to do so).

EDIT #1: Race-wise with Basic Rules document only, you actually have kind of a choice: you could pick up Mountain Dwarf for Wizards and thanks to no useful ASIs, you could still get 20 Con and Int. You would have only 14 Dex as opposed to 16 with Elf race or some such since you have some useless Strength but that's unlikely to make that big of a difference, and the poison resistance is nice at least. Hell, even Hill Dwarf Wizards are potentially worthwhile; just stacking all the HP. But it seems obvious to just put Hill Dwarf on the Cleric (though the frontline character not having movement speed kinda sucks - but the only frontline having +20 HP is nice) and then like High Elf/Stout Halflings for the Wizards.

EDIT #2: I did just realize that magic items kind of allow going beyond that too. Staff of Power can cast Wall of Force for instance so that's available, to every single Wizard in the party (it also gives bonuses to the party saves which is nice with this setup lacking easy saves on every turn). Rod of Absorption is really, really good too, immunity to dispelling/counterspelling and a battery of spell levels for if you need it. Then you can get some save boosters, Sentinel Shields for initiative advantage and perception because why not, Flight for everyone, etc. It seems like a Wizard party could bulldoze most things by level 5 Overchannel Magic Missiling them a bunch for 90ish damage each and then has Walls of Force, Mazes, Meteor Swarms/Gates and such to fall back in the case of more troublesome adversaries. Overchannel is pretty cheap when all the characters can have like 200+ HP (+5 Con and level 6ish Aid from the Cleric): not that it's all that impressive (obviously it's better with more dice from the spell). But yeah, the items make life much easier lacking access to the best spells.

Dante

2022-06-11, 10:10 AM

If you need to deal with a magic immune enemy or an enemy using an AMF, the best bet is either to Divine Intervention it away or to Gate in something that can deal with it and hope that it will agree to (of course, you can pick what you call so if call in a Solar or something to fight a fiend, it's probably inclined to do so).

The thread rules allow magic weapons and Fly and Haste are in Basic, so you also have the option of just killing magic immune enemies with magic crossbows.

@All, for reference, the basic Cleric spells are:
Cantrips (0 Level)
Guidance
Light
Resistance
Sacred Flame
Spare the Dying
Thaumaturgy
1st Level
Bless
Command
Cure Wounds
Detect Magic
Guiding Bolt
Healing Word
Inflict Wounds
Sanctuary
Shield of Faith
2nd Level
Aid
Augury
Hold Person
Lesser Restoration
Prayer of Healing
Silence
Spiritual Weapon
Warding Bond
3rd Level
Beacon of Hope
Dispel Magic
Mass Healing Word
Protection from Energy
Remove Curse
Revivify
Speak with Dead
Spirit Guardians
4th Level
Death Ward
Divination
Freedom of Movement
Guardian of Faith
Locate Creature
5th Level
Commune
Flame Strike
Greater Restoration
Mass Cure Wounds
Raise Dead
6th Level
Blade Barrier
Find the Path
Harm
Heal
Heroes’ Feast
True Seeing
7th Level
Etherealness
Fire Storm
Regenerate
Resurrection
8th Level
Antimagic Field
Earthquake
Holy Aura
9th Level
Astral Projection
Gate
Mass Heal
True Resurrection

The basic Wizard spells are:
Cantrips (0 Level)
Acid Splash
Dancing Lights
Fire Bolt
Light
Mage Hand
Minor Illusion
Poison Spray
Prestidigitation
Ray of Frost
Shocking Grasp
1st Level
Burning Hands
Charm Person
Comprehend Languages
Detect Magic
Disguise Self
Identify
Mage Armor
Magic Missile
Shield
Silent Image
Sleep
Thunderwave
2nd Level
Arcane Lock
Blur
Darkness
Flaming Sphere
Hold Person
Invisibility
Knock
Levitate
Magic Weapon
Misty Step
Shatter
Spider Climb
Suggestion
Web
3rd Level
Counterspell
Dispel Magic
Fireball
Fly
Haste
Lightning Bolt
Major Image
Protection from Energy
4th Level
Arcane Eye
Dimension Door
Greater Invisibility
Ice Storm
Stoneskin
Wall of Fire
5th Level
Cone of Cold
Dominate Person
Dream
Passwall
Wall of Stone
6th Level
Chain Lightning
Disintegrate
Globe of Invulnerability
Mass Suggestion
Otto’s Irresistible Dance
True Seeing
7th Level
Delayed Blast Fireball
Finger of Death
Mordenkainen’s Sword
Teleport
8th Level
Dominate Monster
Maze
Power Word Stun
Sunburst
9th Level
Foresight
Imprisonment
Meteor Swarm
Power Word Kill
Time Stop

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 10:26 AM

The thread rules allow magic weapons and Fly and Haste are in Basic, so you also have the option of just killing magic immune enemies with magic crossbows.

You'll frankly probably pick up Winged Boots or similar on everyone anyways. Lots of Uncommon items and Conc-free Flight is handy. Also, due to the race restrictions you might actually end up with Longbows for everyone for what good that does to you. But most CR 20+ monsters are able to act at range or fly so it's not that big of an advantage; Crossbows aren't beating Sul Khatesh doing her usual bull**** (I don't really see what options you've got there outside Divine Intervention).

EDIT: Though Life Cleric with the +2d8 Radiant can actually do okay at range. At least a decent use for Haste: they can attack for free and then still spell + bonus action attack. Enables at least damaging enemies like Sul Khatesh too.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 11:26 AM

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 11:38 AM

If we are really doing Basic Rules PDF only, the only concentration-free source of flight that I see is Potion of Flying.

Ah yeah, Basic Rules has a magic item list too. In that case you stack AC I guess since you don't really have much of anything else; the weapons are pretty useless (unless you make a Fighter in which case you're stuck being a Champion without feats; doesn't sound like fun times), you can only boost your saves with Ring of Protection, no solid access to flight, no spell items, etc. Potions and Scrolls seem like a bad idea since they are one-use and this is a marathon; yeah, I guess casting a level 6 Fly is the play here.

Basic items have like:
Ring of Protection (rare)
+2 Armor (very rare)
Uh, 3x Bag of Holding each for Bag of Holding bombs (Uncommon)? Maybe a +1 weapon to have a magic weapon to shoot in case it matters? Rakshasa-types might care there.

Ring of Evasion isn't bad either; but Protection boosting all saves is probably desirable? Oh yeah, you can just get both. Gauntlets of Ogre Strength to have Str 19 on everyone is probably just fine too: can focus the ASIs on relevant stuff while still having a prayer of making Str-saves. Notably, not a single magic shield. Mountain Dwarf Wizards could have a base AC of 20 making Shield occasionally relevant. Otherwise I guess it's down to picking a Potion or a Scroll.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 12:11 PM

Another build:

Wood Elf Thief, starting 9 14+2 14 8 13+1 14
After ASIs: Str 9 (*19) Dex 20 Con 14 (*19) Int 8 Wis 16 Cha 20
Skills: *Perc +15, *Athl +16, *Pers +17, *Stlh +17, Sleight +11, Dece +11, Inv +5

VR: Studded +2
R: Amulet of Health (A), Ring of Protection (A)
U: Gauntlets of Ogre Power (A), Shortbow +1, Shortsword +1

AC 20, 183 HP

Wis save +10, adv vs charm
Can Hide when lightly obscured
Gets 2 turns in round 1 (can Ready another Sneak Attack)
Can magic weapon attack at both ranges

Eldariel

2022-06-11, 12:29 PM

Hmm, the Fighter does [Normal/Advantage] 90/108 vs. AC 20 (when Action Surging so 2/SR; probably most of the time). The Thief, assuming Sneak Attack, does 40/50 per turn with +3 weapon or 33/44 with a +1, double that on round 1. Surprisingly similar output for both (though in this case triggering SA isn't always trivial). Thief does benefit of Haste though to the point that it could be a useful addition; 200 damage on R1 at best (provided there's one turn between your turn and your turn -10 you'll get to trigger Sneak Attack up to 4 times per round). The Fighter would really love some extra dice on those attacks but it seems hard to get under these rules.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 01:03 PM

Hill Dwarf Life Cleric, 8 14 14+2 8 15+1 12
Ending Str 8 (*19) Dex 16 Con 20 Int 8 Wis 20 Cha 12
Skills: Perc +11, Insi +11, Relig +5, Stlh +9

VR: Breastplate +2
R: Ring of Protection (A), Warhammer +2
U: Gauntlets (A), Boots of Striding and Springing (A), Bag of Holding

Wields a shield.
AC 21, 223 HP

Can prep almost the whole basic list.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 01:39 PM

Mountain Dwarf Evoker, starting 8+2 14 15+2 15 10 8
Ending Str 10 (*19) Dex 16 Con 20 Int 20 Wis 10 Cha 8
Skills: Arca +11, Inv +11, Stlh +9, Perc +6

VR: Breastplate +2
R: Ring of Protection (A), ?
U: Gauntlets (A), Boots of S&S (A), ?

AC 19, 182 HP

Dante

2022-06-11, 01:53 PM

You'll frankly probably pick up Winged Boots or similar on everyone anyways. Lots of Uncommon items and Conc-free Flight is handy. Also, due to the race restrictions you might actually end up with Longbows for everyone for what good that does to you. But most CR 20+ monsters are able to act at range or fly so it's not that big of an advantage; Crossbows aren't beating Sul Khatesh doing her usual ---- (I don't really see what options you've got there outside Divine Intervention).

EDIT: Though Life Cleric with the +2d8 Radiant can actually do okay at range. At least a decent use for Haste: they can attack for free and then still spell + bonus action attack. Enables at least damaging enemies like Sul Khatesh too.

I'm AFB so can't remember the details on Sul Khatesh (especially the AoE of her antimagic zones), but in general the idea is to have some PCs concentrate on a spell like Haste and go hide in a Rope Trick while the others do the kiting. If the magic-immune monster is still alive after nine rounds, put down the rope so they can climb up into it with you. Recast Haste and repeat until the monster is dead.

My main point is just that, similar to Tarrasque-slaying, you don't have to stick only to weapons you're proficient in and have Extra Attack for. You just have to win the fight.

It's actually kind of relevant for most versions of the OP challenge though because there aren't any magic-immune CR 20+ monsters in the MM, so unless you're doing the Eberron variant of this challenge magic immunity per se won't actually come up. Even Astral Dreadnoughts are vulnerable to magic if you're fast enough and hit them from the right angle.

I think the Basic rules version with fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard is the most iconic and interesting version of this challenge. I might roll up some combats today for fun. Maybe.

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 05:21 PM

I'm AFB so can't remember the details on Sul Khatesh (especially the AoE of her antimagic zones), but in general the idea is to have some PCs concentrate on a spell like Haste and go hide in a Rope Trick while the others do the kiting. If the magic-immune monster is still alive after nine rounds, put down the rope so they can climb up into it with you. Recast Haste and repeat until the monster is dead.

My main point is just that, similar to Tarrasque-slaying, you don't have to stick only to weapons you're proficient in and have Extra Attack for. You just have to win the fight.

It's actually kind of relevant for most versions of the OP challenge though because there aren't any magic-immune CR 20+ monsters in the MM, so unless you're doing the Eberron variant of this challenge magic immunity per se won't actually come up. Even Astral Dreadnoughts are vulnerable to magic if you're fast enough and hit them from the right angle.

I think the Basic rules version with fighter/rogue/cleric/wizard is the most iconic and interesting version of this challenge. I might roll up some combats today for fun. Maybe.

The AoE is 3 40-foot spheres that contain residual anti-magic fields that persist for an hour and don't affect S.K.; she can launch it once daily.
Hm... rope trick and tiny hut aren't in Basic...

Dante

2022-06-11, 06:07 PM

The AoE is 3 40-foot spheres that contain residual anti-magic fields that persist for an hour and don't affect S.K.; she can launch it once daily.
Hm... rope trick and tiny hut aren't in Basic...

Hmm, without Rope Trick you'll probably be better off with upcast Fly (60' movement speed for everyone) than Haste. I guess that doesn't matter for Sul Khatesh anyway because she's essentially invulnerable inside her antimagic zone (magic weapons don't function, Basic has no classes with inherent magic attacks, and Sul Khatesh is unaffected by her own antimagic zone so her immunity to nonmagical attacks still functions)--you basically have to just back off, maybe create some nice total cover for yourself, and wait for the antimagic zone to expire or her to leave.

I mean, you *could* try to grapple her and drag her out of the zone, but in the context of Basic rules and this challenge, why rush?

Kane0

2022-06-11, 06:22 PM

Neat idea to pass the time when I have nothing to do at work, i'll roll a random party and update this post as I go.

Standard array, no feats or multiclassing. Die roll to determine class (reroll duplicates) and subclass, then a race that adds to their prime stat (no Tashas reallocation).

PC 1: Warlock; Fiend; Tiefling
PC 2: Fighter; Eldritch Knight; Dragonborn (Fire)
PC 3: Ranger; Hunter; Elf (Wood)
PC 4: Rogue; Arcane Trickster; Halfling (Stout)
PC 5: Cleric; Knowledge; Dwarf (Hill)

Random magic items, being nice and rerolling consumables then distributing amongst party:

Fighter: +2 Plate, +1 Shield, Nine Lives Stealer (5 Charges)*, Ring of Evasion*, Circlet of Blasting, Javelin of Lightning, Bronze Horn of Valhalla*
Cleric: +1 Shield, Ring of Evasion*, Mace of Terror*, Ring of Water Walking, Wand of Paralysis*
Ranger: Staff of the Woodlands*, Wind Fan, Boots of Speed*, Periapt of Wound Closure*, +1 Shield
Rogue: +1 Shortsword, +1 Shortbow, +1 Studded Leather, Bag of Holding, Ring of Feather Falling*, Rope of Entanglement, Gloves of Swimming & Climbing*, Medallion of Thoughts*
Warlock: Rod of the Pact Keeper +2*, Robe of Stars*, Rod of Security*, Wand of Secrets
*Requires Attunement

Leftovers: Pipes of the Sewers
The Bag of Holding contains primarily Healing potions, ammunition and food but also a smattering of other goodies from the standard adventuring equipment list.

And finally, the enemy lineup:
20: Night Walker
21: Solar
22: Elder Brain Dragon
23: Elder Tempest
24: Yeenoghu
25: Marut
26: Orcus
27: Blue Greatwyrm
28: Copper Greatwyrm
29: N/A
30: Big T

AC 24
HP 184
Speed 30'
Str 20, Dex 9, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 16, Cha 10
Sword: +13, 1d8 +7. Crits vs targets <100hp DC 15 or die (excl. Constructs & Undead), kill expends 1 charge
Javelin: +13, 1d6 +5. 1/LR turn into 5' x 120' lightning bolt, all take 4d6 DC 13 Dex half, attack on target as normal +4d6 lightning damage
Horn of Valhalla: 4d4+4 Berserkers for 1 hour, 7 day cooldown
Circlet +5, 1/LR Scorching Ray
Spells (4/3/3/1): Shield, Feather Fall, Misty Step, Counterspell, Fireball, Haste, Remove Curse, Banishment, Fire Shield, Greater Invisibility, Wall of Fire
Fire Resistance, Breath Weapon (4d10, DC XX), Action Surge 2/SR, Second Wind (1d10 +20) 2/SR, Indomitable 3/LR, Improved War Magic, Eldritch Strike, Arcane Charge, Evasion

AC 21
HP 164
Speed 70'
Str 20, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 10, Wis 18, Cha 8
Staff +13, 1d6 +7
Spells (4/3/3/3/2): Goodberry, Fog Cloud, Hunter's Mark, Pass Without Trace, Silence, Spike Growth, Nondetection, Plant Growth, Water Walk, Freedom of Movement, Swift Quiver
Darkvision, Trance, Land's Stride, Feral Senses, Foe Slayer +4 (Undead, Fiends, Dragons), Colossus Slayer, Steel Will, Whirlwind Attack, Evasion

AC 18
HP 183
Speed 25'
Str 8, Dex 20, Con 18, Int 12, Wis 15, Cha 14
Shortsword +12, 1d6 +6
Shortbow +12, 1d6 +6
Lucky, Brave, Poison Resistance, Sneak Attack +10d6, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Blindsense, Elusive, Stroke of Luck, Thief's Reflexes

AC 21
HP 223
Str 15, Dex 12, Con 20, Int 10, Wis 20, Cha 8
Mace +11, 1d6 +2
Spells (4, 3, 3, 3, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1) Bless, Cure Wounds, Lesser Restoration, Spiritual Weapon, Beacon of Hope, Revivify, Death Ward, Guardian of Faith, Mass Cure Wounds, Raise Dead, Mass Heal, Holy Aura, Regenerate, Resurrection, Blade Barrier, Heal, Harm, Heroes Feast, Greater Restoration, Hallow, Banishment, Guardian of Faith, Dispel Magic, Sending, Aid, Blindness/Deafness, Hold Person, Silence, Warding Bond, Guiding Bolt
Darkvision, Poison Resistance, Channel 3/SR, Divine Intervention, Disciple of Life, Blessed Healer, Divine Strike +2d8, Supreme Healing

AC
HP
Str 10, Dex 12, Con 14, Int 8, Wis 13, Cha 15
Eldritch Blast
Spells

x3n0n

2022-06-11, 08:24 PM

Human Champion, 15+1 13+1 15+1 8+1 11+1 9+1
Ending: Str 20 Dex 16 Con 20 Int 9 (*19) Wis 16 Cha 10
Skills: Athl +11, Perc +9, Stlh +9, Investg +10
Fighting Styles: Great Weapon Fighting, Defense

VR: Maul +3
R: Plate +1, Ring of Protection (A)
U: Goggles of Night, Headband of Intellect (A), Longbow +1

Real compromises here (dex/wis split, disadvantage on Stealth) to get a 2d6 weapon +3 at full efficiency and plate +1.
Should have the highest single-target martial DPR in the ruleset, and benefits a LOT from advantage. Likely worth shoving to start most Action Surge turns, assuming shove is likely to work.
Same ending stats if you use Mountain Dwarf and Boots of S&S (attunement) instead of the goggles.

Edit: DPR vs AC 20:
4 normal: 54
4 advantaged: 70.5
8 normal (Action Surge): 108
8 advantaged: 141
7 advantaged (AS, forego 1 to shove): 123.375
6 advantaged (AS, forego 2): 115.5

Rukelnikov

2022-06-12, 10:13 PM

Interesting to notice, Wand of MM is uncommon, and doesn't require attunement, spending one of the uncommon items for an action each day for 8d4+8 pretty much guaranteed damage seems pretty decent.

Dante

2022-06-12, 10:19 PM

Interesting to notice, Wand of MM is uncommon, and doesn't require attunement, spending one of the uncommon items for an action each day for 8d4+8 pretty much guaranteed damage seems pretty decent.

Do you mean roughly every other day? It only regains d6+1 charges per day.

Rukelnikov

2022-06-13, 12:53 AM

Do you mean roughly every other day? It only regains d6+1 charges per day.

Ah true, it'd be 8d4+8 (28), then an avg of 6.5d4+6.5 (22.75)

Eldariel

2022-06-13, 01:21 AM

Rukelnikov

2022-06-13, 01:49 AM

It's significantly better on an Evoker whose Empowered Evocation combines in the usually ridiculous way with Magic Missile for 8d4+48. You could have 3 of those in your quick draw...but on level 20, I don't think that's really necessary since you'll have so many spell slots and can natively Magic Missile for 80-100 damage if you feel like it (hell, I'm not sure if you even want Meteor Swarm for single target; for this kind of challenge it's probably better to just cast Foresight on as many characters as possible just because you can - though saving a slot or two for some Gate spam is probably prudent).

I thought not only for wizards, but for anyone, I saw a lot of gauntlets of ogre power on classes that will not use it for attack or for armor requirements, I guess its as protection against grapples and the rare Str saves, maybe those could be replaced by a sure striking attack once a day.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 08:16 AM

I thought not only for wizards, but for anyone, I saw a lot of gauntlets of ogre power on classes that will not use it for attack or for armor requirements, I guess its as protection against grapples and the rare Str saves, maybe those could be replaced by a sure striking attack once a day.

Well, the Archer with bow +3 hopefully has something better to do at range at this level, and the +10 Athletics opens up grappling/shoving at decent action cost.

The Thief is the only one who has Expertise, in case there is a DC 25+ Athletics check needed while adventuring.

The Cleric can use it to trigger Divine Strike without maxing Dex.

The Wizard probably doesn't need it except for those saves. If he's grappled in silence, maybe?

Dante

2022-06-13, 08:30 AM

Ah true, it'd be 8d4+8 (28), then an avg of 6.5d4+6.5 (22.75)

I just noticed that the Basic version only lets you spend 3 charges at a time anyway.

"While you hold this wand, you can use an action to expend 1 to 3 of its 7 charges to cast the magic missile spell
without using any components."

So as Eldariel said, you're better off casting with spell slots.

Rukelnikov

2022-06-13, 09:48 AM

I just noticed that the Basic version only lets you spend 3 charges at a time anyway.

"While you hold this wand, you can use an action to expend 1 to 3 of its 7 charges to cast the magic missile spell
without using any components."

So as Eldariel said, you're better off casting with spell slots.

Oh, well, limited to 3 charges at most it loses impact on the edge cases it would be useful for.

Well, the Archer with bow +3 hopefully has something better to do at range at this level, and the +10 Athletics opens up grappling/shoving at decent action cost.

The Thief is the only one who has Expertise, in case there is a DC 25+ Athletics check needed while adventuring.

The Cleric can use it to trigger Divine Strike without maxing Dex.

The Wizard probably doesn't need it except for those saves. If he's grappled in silence, maybe?

Mainly because of its reliability, for the Thief and Cleric I think it'd have been useful for scenarios where they can't reliably deal damage, but since they are limited to 3 charges I don't think its that good, 8d4+8 sounded like a decent option for one of those turns, 5d4+5 less so.

Dante

2022-06-13, 10:17 AM

Mainly because of its reliability, for the Thief and Cleric I think it'd have been useful for scenarios where they can't reliably deal damage, but since they are limited to 3 charges I don't think its that good, 8d4+8 sounded like a decent option for one of those turns, 5d4+5 less so.

5d4+30 (42.5) auto-damage still isn't terrible for an Evoker though, and 5d4+5(17.5) isn't that bad for a cleric. Hmmm. And it's not like it's got a lot of competition among the Uncommon items in the Basic Rules. I can see the Champion fighter taking something like

Very rare: Longbow +3
Rare: Plate Armor +1
Rare: Ring of Protection
Uncommon: Boots of Striding and Springing
Uncommon: Wand of Magic Missiles
Uncommon: Wand of Magic Missiles

and then just giving the wands to the Life Cleric as a cantrip alternative, maybe in exchange for a Ring of Evasion. (Cleric can use his Very Rare on Plate Armor +2 and both of his Rares on Rings of Evasion, and then get Gauntlets of Ogre Power, another Wand of Magic Missiles and a Keoghtom's Ointment.)

Bear in mind that even the Champions's at-will DPR against an Ancient Red Dragon's AC 22 is only 38.4, and a cleric spamming Sacred Flame against an Ancient Red Dragon's Dex +7 save averages only 4d8+0.55=9.9 damage per round. In that context, adding another 17.5 damage probably isn't going to hurt. Although I suspect the Basic party is still toast long before they even get to Ancient Red Dragons--which is sort of the point of this test-to-destruction challenge.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 10:25 AM

Dante

2022-06-13, 10:40 AM

Ah--I was deliberately trading off in the first 4 builds (including the Cleric) to avoid disadvantage on Stealth, assuming that it might open up surprise in several situations.

The arena is always a 300' cube with randomly distributed circular pillars ranging from 3' high to 300' high and ranging in width from 5' (diameter) to 15' diameter. The party and the monster appear in the center of randomly selected quadrants (which may put them adjacent).

Given the arena conditions I was assuming that Stealth would be a non-factor, although I guess Thieves could use the pillars as total cover to hide for advantage.

Are 3 daily Dex saves worth an attunement slot and no Ring of Protection? I typically associate Dex saves with damage-only effects, and he's got a lot of HP plus the various Life Cleric HP features.

I dunno. My thinking is that if you need it, you're really gonna need it, e.g. against an Ancient Black/Blue/Red Dragon kiting you with a 90' breath weapon while you try desperately to whittle down its HP. I can see an argument for getting your Ring of Evasion from someone else instead, like the wizard, just so everyone can have Rings of Protection.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 11:09 AM

The arena is always a 300' cube with randomly distributed circular pillars ranging from 3' high to 300' high and ranging in width from 5' (diameter) to 15' diameter. The party and the monster appear in the center of randomly selected quadrants (which may put them adjacent).

Given the arena conditions I was assuming that Stealth would be a non-factor, although I guess Thieves could use the pillars as total cover to hide for advantage.

I dunno. My thinking is that if you need it, you're really gonna need it, e.g. against an Ancient Black/Blue/Red Dragon kiting you with a 90' breath weapon while you try desperately to whittle down its HP. I can see an argument for getting your Ring of Evasion from someone else instead, like the wizard, just so everyone can have Rings of Protection.

Sorry, I had gotten distracted from the concrete rules and was trying to build with an eye for general adventuring competence (having the Thief be an excellent party face, for example).

Refocusing on the challenge at hand, you're clearly right about surprise being a non-factor and every point of AC being worthwhile, so rebuilding the Fighter(s?) and Cleric with Plate and Boots is probably a better move, and mitigating any particularly bad situations (like the cited exceedingly-painful Dex saves) is also worthwhile.

Edit: meta notes on one obvious "first-party book of your choice"--use the monsters from the SRD.

Day 1:
* CR 20 (25k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Brass Dragon, Ancient White Dragon, Pit Fiend. 75k XP, 85k remaining in budget
* CR 21 (33k XP each): Shuffle 2 from (Ancient Black Dragon, Ancient Copper Dragon, Lich, Solar). 66k XP
Total XP: 141k

Day 2:
* CR 21: Shuffle the remaining 2. 66 XP spent, 94k remaining
* CR 22 (41k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Bronze Dragon and Ancient Green Dragon. 82k XP
Total XP: 148k

Day 3:
* CR 23 (50k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Silver Dragon, Ancient Blue Dragon, and Kraken.
Total XP: 150k

Day 4:
* CR 24 (62k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Gold Dragon, Ancient Red Dragon.
Total XP: 124k

Day 5:
* CR 30 (155k XP): Tarrasque

The Monster Manual only adds one to this list: CR23 Empyrean, which completely changes days 3/4/5, and pushes the Tarrrasque out a day.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 12:06 PM

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 12:17 PM

As a note, the challenge wasn't pick one of each CR, it was do all of CR X, then all of CR X+1, etc. But yeah, thought experiments are thought experiments, actual experiments can do whatever they want.

Sorry--that was what I intended above, but must not have conveyed clearly.

Day 1: 5 battles total--1 against each of the 3 SRD CR 20 creatures, then 1 against each of 2 of the 4 SRD CR 21 creatures. (With short rests after each, then downtime and a long rest at the end of the day).
Day 2: 4 battles: 2 at CR 21, 2 at CR 22.
Day 3: 3 battles, each at CR 23.
Day 4: 2 battles at CR 24.
Day 5: 1 battle at CR 30.

Does that match what you were thinking?

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 12:24 PM

Sorry--that was what I intended above, but must not have conveyed clearly.

Day 1: 5 battles total--1 against each of the 3 SRD CR 20 creatures, then 1 against each of 2 of the 4 SRD CR 21 creatures. (With short rests after each, then downtime and a long rest at the end of the day).
Day 2: 4 battles: 2 at CR 21, 2 at CR 22.
Day 3: 3 battles, each at CR 23.
Day 4: 2 battles at CR 24.
Day 5: 1 battle at CR 30.

Does that match what you were thinking?

I missed that you were doing SRD only (which drastically reduces the monster count).

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 12:38 PM

I missed that you were doing SRD only (which drastically reduces the monster count).

For "active" first-party content, the sources for 20+ CR creatures that I can think of are
* MM (which is just SRD+Empyrean)
* MPMotM
* adventures

Did you have others in mind?

MotM has (ignoring same-CR variants):
* CR 20: 3
* CR 21: 4
* CR 22: 2
* CR 23: 5
* CR 24: 2
* CR 25: 1
* CR 26: 3

MM vs MotM might give some idea of whether balance targets have changed over time?

Edit: if so, the day breakdown looks similar for both gauntlets to start out:
Day 1: 3 @ CR 20, 2 @ CR 21
Day 2: 2 @ CR 21, 2 @ CR 22
Day 3: 3 @ CR 23
Day 4: 2 @ CR 23. Could *ALMOST* squeeze in a CR 24--the total would be 162k
Day 5: 2, either CR 24&24, or 24&25
Day 6: either 25&26 or 26&26
Day 7: Either 26 or 26&26

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 01:09 PM

For "active" first-party content, the sources for 20+ CR creatures that I can think of are
* MM (which is just SRD+Empyrean)
* MPMotM
* adventures

Did you have others in mind?

MotM has (ignoring same-CR variants):
* CR 20: 3
* CR 21: 4
* CR 22: 2
* CR 23: 5
* CR 24: 2
* CR 25: 1
* CR 26: 3

MM vs MotM might give some idea of whether balance targets have changed over time?

Edit: if so, the day breakdown looks similar for both gauntlets to start out:
Day 1: 3 @ CR 20, 2 @ CR 21
Day 2: 2 @ CR 21, 2 @ CR 22
Day 3: 3 @ CR 23
Day 4: 2 @ CR 23. Could *ALMOST* squeeze in a CR 24--the total would be 162k
Day 5: 2, either CR 24&24, or 24&25
Day 6: either 25&26 or 26&26
Day 7: Either 26 or 26&26

I was thinking (because I don't MotM) of the full MM + Volos + MtoF, which (by my count) has 36 total in that range:
CR 20: 6
CR 21: 8
CR 22: 4
CR 23: 9
CR 24: 4
CR 25: 1
CR 26: 3
CR 30: 1

Do those numbers match the total you had? Or did they vanish some monsters in MotM that were in Volo's/MToF?

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 01:18 PM

I was thinking (because I don't MotM) of the full MM + Volos + MtoF, which (by my count) has 36 total in that range:
CR 20: 6
CR 21: 8
CR 22: 4
CR 23: 9
CR 24: 4
CR 25: 1
CR 26: 3
CR 30: 1

Do those numbers match the total you had? Or did they vanish some monsters in MotM that were in Volo's/MToF?

By CR, MM followed by MotM (ignoring variants):
CR 20: 3+3=6
CR 21: 4+4=8
CR 22: 2+2=4
CR 23: 4+5=9
CR 24: 2+2=4
CR 25: 0+1=1
CR 26: 0+3=3
CR 30: 1+0=1

So, in this CR range, all of the Volos/MToF correspond to an entry in MotM.

The fact that the MM column and the MotM (VGtM/MToF) column are so similar in number was what made it look appealing as a pair of gauntlets to see if things changed over time.

Rukelnikov

2022-06-13, 01:25 PM

5d4+30 (42.5) auto-damage still isn't terrible for an Evoker though, and 5d4+5(17.5) isn't that bad for a cleric. Hmmm. And it's not like it's got a lot of competition among the Uncommon items in the Basic Rules. I can see the Champion fighter taking something like

Yeah, I didn't consider it like that, because we don't run MM that way (I know its RAW/RAI but I don't like it, nor support it, same way I don't use Simulacrum in my builds cause I consider it broken)

Very rare: Longbow +3
Rare: Plate Armor +1
Rare: Ring of Protection
Uncommon: Boots of Striding and Springing
Uncommon: Wand of Magic Missiles
Uncommon: Wand of Magic Missiles

and then just giving the wands to the Life Cleric as a cantrip alternative, maybe in exchange for a Ring of Evasion. (Cleric can use his Very Rare on Plate Armor +2 and both of his Rares on Rings of Evasion, and then get Gauntlets of Ogre Power, another Wand of Magic Missiles and a Keoghtom's Ointment.)

The party pooling is a neat idea, though under PP's rules they wouldn't get to trade items until the short rests, and then, you can only attune to one at a time. Probably still worth it, but consider they won't have them for the first few encounters.

Bear in mind that even the Champions's at-will DPR against an Ancient Red Dragon's AC 22 is only 38.4, and a cleric spamming Sacred Flame against an Ancient Red Dragon's Dex +7 save averages only 4d8+0.55=9.9 damage per round. In that context, adding another 17.5 damage probably isn't going to hurt. Although I suspect the Basic party is still toast long before they even get to Ancient Red Dragons--which is sort of the point of this test-to-destruction challenge.

I get 40.2 for the champion (I think you didn't factor in expanded crit range), but if you consider Bless being up, which is also a pretty good defensive option, it goes up to 46.45. Holy Aura is likely a better concentration, depending on the encounter, but it will only be up for one encounter (maybe 2, but Mass heal or true res may be necessary). And yeah, the Cleric still get something out of it, but its far less than I originally thought.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 01:30 PM

By CR, MM followed by MotM (ignoring variants):
CR 20: 3+3=6
CR 21: 4+4=8
CR 22: 2+2=4
CR 23: 4+5=9
CR 24: 2+2=4
CR 25: 0+1=1
CR 26: 0+3=3
CR 30: 1+0=1

So, in this CR range, all of the Volos/MToF correspond to an entry in MotM.

The fact that the MM column and the MotM (VGtM/MToF) column are so similar in number was what made it look appealing as a pair of gauntlets to see if things changed over time.

Ah. Understood. Carry on :smallbiggrin:

Dante

2022-06-13, 01:42 PM

Yeah, I didn't consider it like that, because we don't run MM that way (I know its RAW/RAI but I don't like it, nor support it, same way I don't use Simulacrum in my builds cause I consider it broken)

The party pooling is a neat idea, though under PP's rules they wouldn't get to trade items until the short rests, and then, you can only attune to one at a time. Probably still worth it, but consider they won't have them for the first few encounters.

I get 40.2 for the champion (I think you didn't factor in expanded crit range), but if you consider Bless being up, which is also a pretty good defensive option, it goes up to 46.45. Holy Aura is likely a better concentration, depending on the encounter, but it will only be up for one encounter (maybe 2, but Mass heal or true res may be necessary). And yeah, the Cleric still get something out of it, but its far less than I originally thought.

You're right, I forgot expanded crits. Holy Aura is indeed terrific.

I agree that treating Magic Missile differently from everything else is nonsense. However, I actually go the other way on Empowered Evocation and let it work as originally written:

Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast.

Does this let the Evoker +Int to every 5d8 that gets rolled for every monster that goes through his Wall of Fire? Yep, it's a 25% damage boost across the board. Scorching Ray? 50% damage boost (on an otherwise-mediocre spell).

It's both easier to explain and IMO more fair to the Evoker. Restricting it to one +Int per spell was a harsh and (IMHO) unnecessary nerf.

Wands of Magic Missile don't require attunement, but good point on the Rings of Evasion: they won't be attuned in the initial fight.

I'm starting to suspect that Champion x3 (with Longbows +3) + Life Cleric will get further than any other Basic party given the abundance of short rests and open terrain, although 2 of each might possibly do better.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 02:02 PM

You're right, I forgot expanded crits. Holy Aura is indeed terrific.

I agree that treating Magic Missile differently from everything else is nonsense. However, I actually go the other way on Empowered Evocation and let it work as originally written:

Beginning at 10th level, you can add your Intelligence modifier to the damage roll of any wizard evocation spell you cast.

Does this let the Evoker +Int to every 5d8 that gets rolled for every monster that goes through his Wall of Fire? Yep, it's a 25% damage boost across the board. Scorching Ray? 50% damage boost (on an otherwise-mediocre spell).

It's both easier to explain and IMO more fair to the Evoker. Restricting it to one +Int per spell was a harsh and (IMHO) unnecessary nerf.

Wands of Magic Missile don't require attunement, but good point on the Rings of Evasion: they won't be attuned in the initial fight.

I'm starting to suspect that Champion x3 (with Longbows +3) + Life Cleric will get further than any other Basic party given the abundance of short rests and open terrain, although 2 of each might possibly do better.

I had not consciously realized that almost the entire gauntlet is flying creatures, and many of them with fly speed of 60+ (making melee + having the Wizard concentrate on fly an unattractive option).
Given that and the relative lack of powerful single-target blasts, it seems hard to argue for any primary damage dealer other than the Archer.

Regarding attunement: @PhoenixPhyre, I assume "you've already attuned to the items that are actually in your inventory before the first battle" is ok?

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 02:28 PM

Regarding attunement: @PhoenixPhyre, I assume "you've already attuned to the items that are actually in your inventory before the first battle" is ok?

Correct. With a few more characters.

Dante

2022-06-13, 03:09 PM

Day 1:
* CR 20 (25k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Brass Dragon, Ancient White Dragon, Pit Fiend. 75k XP, 85k remaining in budget
* CR 21 (33k XP each): Shuffle 2 from (Ancient Black Dragon, Ancient Copper Dragon, Lich, Solar). 66k XP
Total XP: 141k

Day 2:
* CR 21: Shuffle the remaining 2. 66 XP spent, 94k remaining
* CR 22 (41k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Bronze Dragon and Ancient Green Dragon. 82k XP
Total XP: 148k

Day 3:
* CR 23 (50k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Silver Dragon, Ancient Blue Dragon, and Kraken.
Total XP: 150k

Day 4:
* CR 24 (62k XP each): Shuffle Ancient Gold Dragon, Ancient Red Dragon.
Total XP: 124k

Day 5:
* CR 30 (155k XP): Tarrasque

The Monster Manual only adds one to this list: CR23 Empyrean, which completely changes days 3/4/5, and pushes the Tarrrasque out a day.

After playing around with some test combats, I think I still like (Wood Elf) Champions x3 (Wood Elf) Life Cleric x1, as long as you take plenty of Keoghtom's Ointment and/or Potions of Healing (depending on whether they count as magic items or not) in case the Cleric goes down, and as long as you Heroes' Feast when you get a chance because there's a ton of monsters scheduled with Frightful Presence and Calm Emotions isn't in the Basic rules. (There's not enough time to Heroes' Feast before the first combat of the day unfortunately so just save your Action Surge for when fear wears off.)

For example, in a test fight vs. an Ancient White Dragon, the party wound up in the SW corner and the dragon started 150' away from them in the SE corner:

Round 1
Init 20+8 (28): Champion 1 Action Surges 8 arrows for 80 HP of damage then moves N behind a pillar.
Init 16+8 (24): Champion 2 Action Surges 8 arrows for 105 HP of damage then moves S.
Init 14+8 (22): Champion 3 Action Surges 8 arrows for 103 HP of damage then moves 30' W away from the dragon.
Init 18+0 (18): Dragon flies toward PCs then breathes on Champion 2 and Cleric. Champion 2 rolls 11+11 (22) and passes, takes (16d8=58)/2 (29) HP of damage. Cleric rolls 11+5 (16) and fails, takes 58 HP of damage.
Init 14+0 (14): Cleric Dodges, casts Sanctuary, and moves SW to put pillar between self and Champion 2.

Round 2
Champion 1 shoots 4 arrows for 34 HP of damage. It's not quite dead yet so he shrugs and Action Surges 4 more arrows for 25 more HP. (Champion 1's rolls are really not good today!) The dragon falls out of the sky with a thud. It's at -14/333 HP, not counting falling damage.
Champion 2 Second Winds for 21 HP recovered, is now at 216/224 HP.
Life Cleric is at 145/203 HP, may need a Heal spell before the second combat.

Champions 1 and 3 are undamaged and each have an action surge left. The combat wasn't close and wouldn't have been even with a different initiative order.

Impression: there's plenty of DPR output. Sanctuary probably wasn't necessary at that point in this combat. Cleric is definitely a weak point but he's not that weak in the context of all that DPR, and pre-casting Death Ward on himself would have mitigated even that. This party composition is pretty strong--if there's a more optimal Basic party it's probably not going to become clear until monsters start having more special abilities that need countering. Even with feats or access to PHB spells, these guys can kill CR 20 monsters all day long as long as they get some short rests.

Eldariel

2022-06-13, 03:12 PM

I had not consciously realized that almost the entire gauntlet is flying creatures, and many of them with fly speed of 60+ (making melee + having the Wizard concentrate on fly an unattractive option).
Given that and the relative lack of powerful single-target blasts, it seems hard to argue for any primary damage dealer other than the Archer.

Well, RAW Magic Missile-spamming Wizards can do more than enough damage. Otherwise, drop Meteor Swarm and then it's not that great (though AOE blasts are surprisingly OK; Overchanneled Cone of Cold does 70 damage from a marginal slot investment for instance, which isn't horrible and Fireball is still 53 damage maximized too; even if you assume saves are always made, that's decent damage). But yeah, if you plan to use martials in the Iconic sense, you need archery on everyone (which is one of the basic issues with the system as a whole, really; melee martials are the most obsolete of the obsolete). And there's no way to bypass the disadvantage on ranged attacks other than neutralizing it out to average without Sharpshooter. Foresight on Champion seems really solid too, as a non-Conc alternative to Holy Aura, tho Holy Aura is a fine spell to Concentrate on.

Wizard might actually be employed as a tank, using Walls of Stone to protect the party from breaths and such while the other guys try to efficiently deal damage. Indeed, the Wizard list has a lot of nice utility in stuff like Dimension Door, Passwall, Wall of Stone, etc. Though ideally you'd just want to Concentrate on Haste for your Thief so that they can actually contribute. Fighter has two rounds of Action Surging which lets them do decently well even if there are some qualms about their overall damage potential (1d8 crits aren't that impressive and Half-Orc is not available).

But yeah, Magic Missile spam will of course also end most monsters pretty efficiently. 3 Evokers spamming MM can do Champion levels of damage all day, though at the limited range of 120'. Having everyone with access to all the utility spells seems really good though.

Rukelnikov

2022-06-13, 04:16 PM

Dante

2022-06-13, 04:32 PM

Regarding the multiples of same class, yeah, a second Champion is likely to perform better than a Thief, UMD is pretty much useless in this scenario, and its one of its strongest features. However, I think that would go against the spirit of the challenge.

I think we should try to do the staple dnd party, and the subclasses of the basic rules were properly chosen for that. I'll try to present a party build tomorrow, though tbh, I don't think there's that much wiggle room to differ from what has already been presented.

Personally I just don't want to deal with all the rule ambiguities around Thief, such as just how many pillars there are, where they are, whether the Thief is still hidden if someone moves to total cover no longer obscures the Thief's position (but if it doesn't, then what's the point of Stealth anyway?), etc. Assuming that sneak attack doesn't wind up being useless in the arena, from a DPR standpoint I don't expect much difference between a Wood Elf Thief and a Wood Elf Champion. Maybe something on the order of the Champion being 25% faster to deal damage and the Thief being better at holding the range open.

You're welcome to do it your way but I don't feel inclined restrict myself beyond what the OP requires, especially when it just adds hassle and ambiguity when it comes to running the combats.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 04:35 PM

Regarding the multiples of same class, yeah, a second Champion is likely to perform better than a Thief, UMD is pretty much useless in this scenario, and its one of its strongest features. However, I think that would go against the spirit of the challenge.

I think we should try to do the staple dnd party, and the subclasses of the basic rules were properly chosen for that. I'll try to present a party build tomorrow, though tbh, I don't think there's that much wiggle room to differ from what has already been presented.

Personally, I think that for data collection purposes (ie the idea behind the thought experiment), less Schroedinger's party design is probably the right thing (because I doubt WotC used 4x magic missile-spamming evokers as their balance touchpoint).

But another part of me is amused by people immediately jumping to "how can we optimize for this one particular challenge" (aka "beat the game" optimization). That does rely on exploiting the particularities and artificialities of this, something that plagues all "perfect knowledge" or "arena" challenges where all the parameters are known in advance and you're not really playing the game.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 04:59 PM

Personally, I think that for data collection purposes (ie the idea behind the thought experiment), less Schroedinger's party design is probably the right thing (because I doubt WotC used 4x magic missile-spamming evokers as their balance touchpoint).

But another part of me is amused by people immediately jumping to "how can we optimize for this one particular challenge" (aka "beat the game" optimization). That does rely on exploiting the particularities and artificialities of this, something that plagues all "perfect knowledge" or "arena" challenges where all the parameters are known in advance and you're not really playing the game.

To be fair, the version that is specific to the Basic Rules leads (IMO) mostly to platonic ideal designs for the purest version of the archetype.

Archer? Elf, high Dex, great bow, great armor. High Con, athletics training, keen eyes.
Thief? Halfling or Elf, max Dex. Mine did max Cha for face stuff.
Cleric? Dwarf or human, tough armor and shield.
Wizard? Ok, Mountain Dwarf not so much. :)

Legendary Adventurers that have survived to fight world-threatening challenges? Max Con and Ring of Protection sound reasonable.

All in all, this feels like a nice adventuring party, not too tuned for just this specific "gauntlet of single-target combats" challenge. (Which to me feels like a testament to the design and design goals of the Basic Rules.)

LudicSavant

2022-06-13, 05:02 PM

Personally, I think that for data collection purposes (ie the idea behind the thought experiment), less Schroedinger's party design is probably the right thing (because I doubt WotC used 4x magic missile-spamming evokers as their balance touchpoint).

WotC originally used Evokers that not only got the Magic Missile boost, but got a +5 to every damage roll of every Evocation spell.

Empowered Evocation's 'one roll of the spell' thing came in a later errata.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 05:03 PM

To be fair, the version that is specific to the Basic Rules leads (IMO) mostly to platonic ideal designs for the purest version of the archetype.

Archer? Elf, high Dex, great bow, great armor. High Con, athletics training, keen eyes.
Thief? Halfling or Elf, max Dex. Mine did max Cha for face stuff.
Cleric? Dwarf or human, tough armor and shield.
Wizard? Ok, Mountain Dwarf not so much. :)

Legendary Adventurers that have survived to fight world-threatening challenges? Max Con and Ring of Protection sound reasonable.

All in all, this feels like a nice adventuring party, not too tuned for just this specific "gauntlet of single-target combats" challenge. (Which to me feels like a testament to the design and design goals of the Basic Rules.)

Yeah. I was more talking about the "meme parties" (aka all archers + one cleric or 4x wizards spamming mm). The pure basic rules party feels the most "classic", which is why I have a strong hunch that it's pretty darn close to their presumed default balance point. At least back at the start (so MM monsters).

A much larger version of this would be to do it at all levels, randomly generating adventuring days of random encounters with much looser parameters. But that's way way way more work, and the warthog kneels I'm too lazy to even contemplate doing that more than idly.

@LudicSavant But likely not balancing around parties of nothing but them. As a note, that type of party is unlikely to survive a more...balanced...diet of encounters starting at level 1.

Dante

2022-06-13, 05:14 PM

Yeah. I was more talking about the "meme parties" (aka all archers + one cleric or 4x wizards spamming mm). The pure basic rules party feels the most "classic"

Nah, the most classic would be six fighters, a cleric, a thief, and a magic-user. Having only one fighter came along much later.

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 05:26 PM

Nah, the most classic would be six fighters, a cleric, a thief, and a magic-user. Having only one fighter came along much later.

FWIW, my personal iconic has 5 with one melee brute/tank (typically a Paladin) on top of archer/thief/cleric/wizard.

However, I think the combined structure of challenge (4 members, quick-moving single flying adversary), the lack of Paladins, and the 5e rules themselves make a melee Fighter pretty irrelevant here. If Paladin was available, I'd be tempted to replace the archer and let the Thief serve as both archer and sneak.

I happen to think Oath of Devotion Paladin is probably the single best match in the whole game for giving a fun play experience from 1-20 while having the play experience (not just the apparent features) correspond to the "feel" given by the fantasy.

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 05:30 PM

FWIW, my personal iconic has 5 with one melee brute/tank (typically a Paladin) on top of archer/thief/cleric/wizard.

However, I think the combined structure of challenge (quick-moving single flying adversary) and the 5e rules themselves make a melee Fighter pretty irrelevant here.

Many of the enemies are actually best off dipping into melee combat--the dragons, for instance, can't rely on their breath weapons alone (due to recharge and not being able to out-range the arrows/flying things because trapped in a box). Most of the rest can fly, but aren't all that effective at range. Which is...really really common for 5e monsters. The number of primarily-ranged (or "better at range" at least) combatants that aren't pure casters is small.

Eldariel

2022-06-13, 05:39 PM

Dante

2022-06-13, 05:43 PM

x3n0n

2022-06-13, 06:10 PM

Many of the enemies are actually best off dipping into melee combat--the dragons, for instance, can't rely on their breath weapons alone (due to recharge and not being able to out-range the arrows/flying things because trapped in a box). Most of the rest can fly, but aren't all that effective at range. Which is...really really common for 5e monsters. The number of primarily-ranged (or "better at range" at least) combatants that aren't pure casters is small.

The box is pretty big--big enough that (facing only a single archer) the dragon could reasonably hope to breathe, retreat, recharge, breathe and cause some significant attrition before its eventual demise. The Life Cleric is doing a LOT of work in that scenario; that said, he can easily afford it at 20th level, especially with a short rest between battles for both innate HD healing and Second Wind/Channel Divinity.

I see now that the Pit Fiend has not a lot of ranged counterplay, as you said: spamming fireball and retreating (optimally behind a 15' pillar for total cover) seems to be it...but that strategy would completely hose a party that doesn't have at least 2 good ranged damage options, and under RAW for Ready an Action, is actually pretty hard for the normal archer to deal with (since he can only fire one arrow if he waits for the P.F. to peek out).

I was not sure that team PC was going to do well, but that was without actually running any numbers. If archer + Thief are dealing 160ish HP in the first round to every combatant, that is a very short clock for team monster, and if Life Cleric is regularly able to top the party to full (and potentially upcasting aid at some point and setting a heroes' feast before all the days past the first), this may not be that bad for team PC.

(Given this structure, the Wizard casting foresight on the Rogue in the morning pays off really well, almost guaranteeing Sneak Attack and freeing up Cunning Action to Dash instead of Hide, potentially stacked on top of Haste for even faster movement along with the "Ready trick", in addition to getting Sneak Attack on a single Readied shot per turn.)

PhoenixPhyre

2022-06-13, 06:16 PM

I'm almost certain that for every level of play and every type of game with just Basic Rules, 3 Evokers + 1 Life Cleric is the de facto strongest party. Gives you incredible encounter ending power on low levels with a solid frontline and a lot of CC + damage, and keeps getting better. Alternatively 2 Clerics + 2 Wizards is also okay but I think there's too much redundancy in what a Cleric offers with these rules to truly make full use of the second Cleric. The races may vary a bit, but I think that's the eventual outcome regardless: even without minionmancy and with highly restricted spell lists, getting abilities is just stronger than not getting abilities.

But that's probably also something WotC overlooked.

Level 1. You've got a day like 4x Hard encounters, each one with, say, 4 goblins. You've got 8 spell slots, total (assuming you spend one from each of the wizards on mage armor and regain it via Arcane Recovery). A single hit from a goblin is likely to take out a wizard, and the wizards are squishy, with no slots to spend on shield. The cleric can only bring up 2 people, total. And if the goblins focus him in round 1 (because he's going to lose initiative), he's down and can't get anyone else up at all.

And the goblins are equally matched on initiative and can hide as a bonus action, completely denying magic missile. And it takes an entire magic missile to guarantee putting down a single goblin.

Yeah, not going to go well.

Dante

2022-06-13, 08:40 PM

I'm almost certain that for every level of play and every type of game with just Basic Rules, 3 Evokers + 1 Life Cleric is the de facto strongest party. Gives you incredible encounter ending power on low levels with a solid frontline and a lot of CC + damage, and keeps getting better. Alternatively 2 Clerics + 2 Wizards is also okay but I think there's too much redundancy in what a Cleric offers with these rules to truly make full use of the second Cleric. The races may vary a bit, but I think that's the eventual outcome regardless: even without minionmancy and with highly restricted spell lists, getting abilities is just stronger than not getting abilities.

But that's probably also something WotC overlooked.

I think 3 Evokers + Life Cleric does okay at some types of games: they are bad at medium-long range and bad against groups who don't assume Fireball Formation and have ranged weaponry, like Goblins relying on their shortbows instead of melee.

In this particular challenge I don't think there's any question that Champions will do better than Evokers, not least because they're better at turning the Cleric's healing into at-will damage output. When I run the numbers, Champions win, and they recharge on a short rest.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 12:19 AM

Level 1. You've got a day like 4x Hard encounters, each one with, say, 4 goblins. You've got 8 spell slots, total (assuming you spend one from each of the wizards on mage armor and regain it via Arcane Recovery). A single hit from a goblin is likely to take out a wizard, and the wizards are squishy, with no slots to spend on shield. The cleric can only bring up 2 people, total. And if the goblins focus him in round 1 (because he's going to lose initiative), he's down and can't get anyone else up at all.

And the goblins are equally matched on initiative and can hide as a bonus action, completely denying magic missile. And it takes an entire magic missile to guarantee putting down a single goblin.

Yeah, not going to go well.

I don't think what you're describing is an Evoker party problem (I don't see why they would rely on Magic Missile on level 1; they're Wizards, they should prepare different spells for different circumstances), but a level 1 problem. The "default party" of Champion/Thief/Evoker/Life Cleric is much more vulnerable to sneak'n'shoot: it only has 2 Sleeps to guarantee taking down Goblins. Vs. a rounded party, Goblins can still shoot the Cleric dead, followed by a Wizard and a Thief dead, and you still only have 2 Healing Words and the Fighter isn't likely to last alone. 3 Fighters is even worse: they need to pray their attack rolls hit to do anything at all and they can't guarantee a Goblin goes down even on hit (50/50 about).

On level 1, all the Wizards have Sleep, which means you can often in most terrains hit multiple Goblins with a single casting (40' radius is huge) and it's basically guaranteed to take down a Goblin (as opposed to anything else). While any party can go down to Goblins, I think the party with 6 castings of Sleep for 4 encounters is likely to be more fine than the one that has to pray their single attack rolls hit at 50% chance. The only party that's likely to be stronger is like 2 Clerics 2 Wizards or 3 Clerics 1 Wizard. Frankly I don't see what Thief or Champion contribute here: attack rolls with a lot of hope//pray?

I think 3 Evokers + Life Cleric does okay at some types of games: they are bad at medium-long range and bad against groups who don't assume Fireball Formation and have ranged weaponry, like Goblins relying on their shortbows instead of melee.

Well, Fireball does have 40' radius, that's a pretty big circle; if there's a sufficient number of Goblins to be a threat, it'll be very, very hard for them to stay far enough apart to avoid AOE and if there's only one or two, well, you can splurt them individually with ranged attacks or spells; spells always have the advantage that there are autohit spells.

In this particular challenge I don't think there's any question that Champions will do better than Evokers, not least because they're better at turning the Cleric's healing into at-will damage output. When I run the numbers, Champions win, and they recharge on a short rest.

The Evokers have more than enough slots for a challenge like this; 3 level 5 slots, 2 level 6 slots, 2 level 7 slots, 1 level 8 slot, 2 Arcane Recovery level 5 slots. A total of 10 slots per character before dropping to level 4 slots (which still do 70 damage if Overchanneled or 55 if not). They can burn those with abandon without really running into problems. Their medium range is still fine; they can Fireball at 170' range if need be. It's true that they don't shine at long range (you are down to bow pelting at that point) but OTOH even Champions are attacking at disadvantage there and Evokers can at least use action to move two of them 500' if need be; they can choose their distance pretty effortlessly.

Evokers also have e.g. Wall of Stone and Passwall to provide cover from breath weapons among other things going on for them. They also have the Fly-spell and they're mobile. They can have Foresight/Gate (if we assume Foresight used as buff, they'll just have advantage on all their saves and Initiatives and such) and they don't care about Frightened, which seems to be the most common save with this setup. Their AC is also significantly better (for what it matters) and they have Counterspell. They have Dimension Door for repositioning and escaping grapples and such if need and They're just defensively much more solid than Champions, who basically only have slightly more HP (without Aid or temporary HP or such, 224 on Champs vs. 182 on Evokers). Champions will be fine as long as they can kill the enemy before they run out of Action Surges but if they run into enemies that can survive for over two rounds, their damage will drop off sharply (though there don't seem to be many such enemies in this challenge - which speaks for the challenge). Evokers in this scenario can kill the same enemies just as easily: Ancient Dragons go down to two-three rounds of Magic Missiles fairly easily and they can just pack Wands to have extras if need be (but honestly, they'll largely be fine with just their slots). It's 80 damage each: Ancient Red is the most durable dragon taking two castings from 3 characters. Looking at the encounter days, I don't think there'll be issues on having sufficient spell slots and you'll have leftover for utility too. 6 fights? If the worst that can happen is two level 5+ slots consumed, that's easy. So the fact that Champions recover on SR doesn't actually matter.

Curious, why would Champions be better at converting healing into damage output? Once their Action Surges run out, they do like 40/round while Wizards still likely have high level slots or Wands for 60-80ish damage Magic Missiles. Wizards also have better defensive numbers aside from HP and HP is the one thing not multiplied by healing. So...it seems like Evokers are better at converting healing into damage, actually?

LudicSavant

2022-06-14, 12:52 AM

Level 1. You've got a day like 4x Hard encounters, each one with, say, 4 goblins. You've got 8 spell slots, total (assuming you spend one from each of the wizards on mage armor and regain it via Arcane Recovery).

Unless they're missing something that they get in the PHB, that would make 11 spell slots, plus rituals. And just "shoot a crossbow" or "raw dual-wielding" are actually relevant actions at level 1, especially when combined with proper use of rituals and cantrips.

Dante

2022-06-14, 01:14 AM

Curious, why would Champions be better at converting healing into damage output? Once their Action Surges run out, they do like 40/round while Wizards still likely have high level slots or Wands for 60-80ish damage Magic Missiles. Wizards also have better defensive numbers aside from HP and HP is the one thing not multiplied by healing. So...it seems like Evokers are better at converting healing into damage, actually?

Evokers can't hit the 80-ish HP mark without using 9th level spells, which aren't a short rest resource that can last through all four or five (ish) combats per adventuring day in this challenge. Champions do around 160 damage each over the first two rounds; an Evoker with an 8th and a 5th level slot does only 144.

Furthermore, range is an issue when the enemy starts 150'+ away from you 75% of the time. Champion takes a 25%ish damage penalty on round 1 due to distance, but Evoker takes a 100% penalty unless they charge right at the enemy--you're right that an Evoker can grab a buddy and Dimension Door them both towards e.g. the Ancient White Dragon, but that's still a 100% penalty for each Dimension Door caster that round, and it leaves you in Fireball Formation.

It's possible that stuff like Wall of Stone can make up for this. It depends on what the arena is constructed from--is there solid stone that Wall of Stone can merge with?

Survivor is actually also kind of useful in this kind of grindy contest.

Anyway, that's why I think Champion works out better than Evoker. Basically it just comes down to numbers: more attacks sooner and from longer range. (This is less true at higher CR = fewer short rests per day, but then you likewise run into the Tarrasque, which I don't think the Basic Evoker has a good answer for.)

That's just my intuition though, not a proof! If you can take a party of 3 Evokers + Life Cleric further than 3 Champions + Life Cleric I will be interested, not disappointed.

P.S. Just noticed that you mentioned "Wands for 60-80ish damage Magic Missiles." Crucial point: in Basic, Wands of Magic Missile can only use 1 to 3 charges per action, so you're doing only 42.5 damage per round with a wand, roughly comparable to the Champion. If wand spam worked in Basic I'd be a lot more optimistic about Evoker.

P.P.S. Just had another thought: at higher CRs, spells like Dominate Person before more common, and Evokers are going to be better at both Counterspelling and saving against those. Hmm.

Dork_Forge

2022-06-14, 01:30 AM

A team of Wizards is going to suffer from a lack of hit points and healing, and will likely end up (in forum fashion at least, I doubt it happens much elsewhere) using weapons worse than the Thief or Champion would.

I'm also not sure why Sleep is regarded as so clutch at low levels, if you roll average you'll get 3 Goblins asleep, if you can get them all in the area without catching PCs in it too.

Since goblins and low level PCs using basic rules is the topic, Lost Mines is a perfect example:

4 Goblins, when 3 go down the last will flee. Great for sleep, right? Yeah, no:

- The goblins have a decent chance of surprising some PCs, if not all. A party of Wizards are far more vulnerable to this.

- Two immediately rush into melee, making Sleep far, far riskier to use

- The other two stay at range with bows 30 feet away from the party, making the chances of getting even 3 goblins in it, very slim.

But wait, there's multiple Wizards, they can just cast Sleep multiple times! Multiple castings of large area spells that don't discriminate and prefer a Wizard's lowly d6 Hit Die is asking for trouble, and there's a very very good chance Wizards will be down before they even get the chance to cast it.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 01:53 AM

Evokers can't hit the 80-ish HP mark without using 9th level spells, which aren't a short rest resource that can last through all four or five (ish) combats per adventuring day in this challenge. Champions do around 160 damage each over the first two rounds; an Evoker with an 8th and a 5th level slot does only 144.

Evoker with Overchannel and Empowered Evocation does 4+1+5 = 10 damage per missile. Level 1 Magic Missile has 3 missiles. Level 5 Magic Missile has 7 missiles. Can't overchannel over level 5 versions so level 6 version has 8 missiles but only 2,5+6 = 8,5 per missile for 68. Still pretty solid. So an evoker with an 8th and a 5th level slot does 10*8,5 + 7*10 = 85 + 70 = 155 damage if they Overchannel the level 5 version (or 144,5 without Overchannel).

Dork_Forge

2022-06-14, 02:04 AM

Evoker with Overchannel and Empowered Evocation does 4+1+5 = 10 damage per missile. Level 1 Magic Missile has 3 missiles. Level 5 Magic Missile has 8 missiles. Can't overchannel over level 5 versions so level 6 version has 9 missiles but only 2,5+6 = 8,5 per missile for 76,5. Still pretty solid. So an evoker with an 8th and a 5th level slot does 11*8,5 + 8*10 = 93,5 + 80 = 173,5 damage if they Overchannel the level 5 version (or 161,5 without Overchannel).

It looks like you're going one dart too high per upcast, which is inflating the numbers:

1st level cast: 3 darts

upcasting: 1 additional dart per spell level over 1st

5th level should be 7, not 8

8th level should be 10, not 11

So the Evoker with an 8th and 5th slot overchanneling is doing 70+65=135 damage

I think there's also just a general error, 11*8.5= 71.5 not 93.5

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 02:19 AM

It looks like you're going one dart too high per upcast, which is inflating the numbers:

1st level cast: 3 darts

upcasting: 1 additional dart per spell level over 1st

5th level should be 7, not 8

8th level should be 10, not 11

So the Evoker with an 8th and 5th slot overchanneling is doing 70+65=135 damage

I think there's also just a general error, 11*8.5= 71.5 not 93.5

Fair, I probably typoed some quick calculations. Still, seems fair enough to me. I'll go back and fix 'em. That said, 11*8,5 is most certainly 93,5. 10 * 8,5 = 85 already. You might be counting 6,5*11 instead, which would have the d4 land on 0,5: 1d4+6 is the roll.

A team of Wizards is going to suffer from a lack of hit points and healing, and will likely end up (in forum fashion at least, I doubt it happens much elsewhere) using weapons worse than the Thief or Champion would.

I'm also not sure why Sleep is regarded as so clutch at low levels, if you roll average you'll get 3 Goblins asleep, if you can get them all in the area without catching PCs in it too.

Since goblins and low level PCs using basic rules is the topic, Lost Mines is a perfect example:

4 Goblins, when 3 go down the last will flee. Great for sleep, right? Yeah, no:

- The goblins have a decent chance of surprising some PCs, if not all. A party of Wizards are far more vulnerable to this.

- Two immediately rush into melee, making Sleep far, far riskier to use

- The other two stay at range with bows 30 feet away from the party, making the chances of getting even 3 goblins in it, very slim.

But wait, there's multiple Wizards, they can just cast Sleep multiple times! Multiple castings of large area spells that don't discriminate and prefer a Wizard's lowly d6 Hit Die is asking for trouble, and there's a very very good chance Wizards will be down before they even get the chance to cast it.

If you get two Goblins in Sleep, that's more than enough. Dealing with the remaining two is much easier than dealing with all 4 and if they go try to wake up their ally, they just line themselves up for both/all getting sleeped. As for getting surprised, yeah, that can kill any PC party. Not exactly news. It's a swingy fight that can go either way but you have cover from the wagon, you have advance scouting information, etc. Without familiars Wizards are about comparable to other classes in this fight: best offensively, weakest defensively. And why would you hit allies? Just have ally move to the other side of the Goblins before casting Sleep. It's pretty trivial to cast Sleep so that it doesn't hit allies most of the time and you have readied actions (if all the Goblins act at same initiative, you can just have the ally move to the other side of the Goblin before you cast Sleep). Honestly, this is the same stuff that keeps getting brought up every time the spell is mentioned - it's all avoidable with smart tactical play on the party's behalf.

So why is Sleep clutch? Have you tried killing two Goblins with a level 1 Fighter? Level 1 characters suck! It'll take you about four turns on level 1, if you even get to shoot every round due to the hiding shenanigans; you'll miss one third of your shots and half of the non-crit hits won't do lethal damage. Compared to that, a spell that puts two Goblins to Sleep with very little chance of failing on round 1, immediately removing their offensive output, is more contribution than a Champion and a Thief combined are likely to provide over 3-4 rounds. In magical Christmas land, the Fighter might hit all their attacks and kill a Goblin per hit but if you play the fight, say, 10 times, that's less likely than only killing 1 Goblin over those 4 turns (quick calculation puts it at over 15% to only kill a single Goblin over 4 turns of attacking with Longbow and Archery style though that's slightly favourable to the Fighter since I'm simplifying every crit is lethal and if first hit rolls lethal, second rolls lethal too).

Dante

2022-06-14, 09:15 AM

Evoker with Overchannel and Empowered Evocation does 4+1+5 = 10 damage per missile. Level 1 Magic Missile has 3 missiles. Level 5 Magic Missile has 7 missiles. Can't overchannel over level 5 versions so level 6 version has 8 missiles but only 2,5+6 = 8,5 per missile for 68. Still pretty solid. So an evoker with an 8th and a 5th level slot does 10*8,5 + 7*10 = 85 + 70 = 155 damage if they Overchannel the level 5 version (or 144,5 without Overchannel).

Yeah, it's pretty solid--but even Overchanneling, the Champion's damage is better, and so is the Champion's range. I guess the question at this point is "does the difference even matter?" If it turns out that three Evokers have sufficient slots to kill everything in every adventuring day in two rounds or less--in that case the Champion advantage would basically just be range (and simplicity to run).

All these tips are probably helpful for the iconic fighter thief cleric magic-user party. Foresight the Wood Elf Thief, give a bunch of wands to the Evoker, and now between the Evoker's 140ish, the Champion's 160ish, and the Thief's 120ish, most fights are still over two rounds after the enemy comes within 120'.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 09:33 AM

Dante

2022-06-14, 09:42 AM

It's probably worth it to spend Evoker's R1 to Haste the Thief too, at least if the Wizard goes first (though Foresight makes that hard). With Thief's double turn that is likely to do more damage than any other opener and it's a gift that keeps on giving. If the Cleric were able to Holy Aura, Foresight could be cast on the Evoker instead (so that you'd get more of Evoker > Thief turn orders which maxes out R1 value) which would help with Concentration among other things.

In principle, you could cast Haste before the fight starts.

I can't tell if the rules forbid that or not, but if it's allowed, PCs are going to be able to take advantage of precasting better than monsters generally can.

x3n0n

2022-06-14, 09:52 AM

If the Cleric were able to Holy Aura, Foresight could be cast on the Evoker instead (so that you'd get more of Evoker > Thief turn orders which maxes out R1 value) which would help with Concentration among other things.

You keep saying that holy aura does the work of foresight here, and I have yet to understand why.

Divine light washes out from you and coalesces in a soft radiance in a 30-foot radius around you. Creatures of your choice in that radius when you cast this spell shed dim light in a 5-foot radius and have advantage on all saving throws, and other creatures have disadvantage on attack rolls against them until the spell ends. In addition, when a fiend or an undead hits an affected creature with a melee attack, the aura flashes with brilliant light. The attacker must succeed on a Constitution saving throw or be blinded until the spell ends.

I don't see any offensive boost here; am I missing it?

Dork_Forge

2022-06-14, 10:12 AM

If you get two Goblins in Sleep, that's more than enough. Dealing with the remaining two is much easier than dealing with all 4 and if they go try to wake up their ally, they just line themselves up for both/all getting sleeped. As for getting surprised, yeah, that can kill any PC party. Not exactly news. It's a swingy fight that can go either way but you have cover from the wagon, you have advance scouting information, etc. Without familiars Wizards are about comparable to other classes in this fight: best offensively, weakest defensively. And why would you hit allies? Just have ally move to the other side of the Goblins before casting Sleep. It's pretty trivial to cast Sleep so that it doesn't hit allies most of the time and you have readied actions (if all the Goblins act at same initiative, you can just have the ally move to the other side of the Goblin before you cast Sleep). Honestly, this is the same stuff that keeps getting brought up every time the spell is mentioned - it's all avoidable with smart tactical play on the party's behalf.

Okay let's break down the elements here:

Advance scouting information- This is incredibly unrealistic. It's an ambush immediately at the onset of an adventure, presuming CaW style reconing to address that isn't realistic and runs sharply into assuming FF use at the poorest levels of the game.

Tactical positioning - This was just handwaved, the players don't just get to control overall positioning for optimal AOEing all the time, especially when actively being ambushed by monsters that are aiming to get mixed in with the party

Cover from the Wagon - You can only actively use this cover when you're able to act in combat, and this cover is heavily mitigated by the goblins explicitly coming from both sides of the road.

Surprise - You just handwaved this, the increased fragility of a Wizard-heavy party matters, especially at lower levels. Whilst it's fairly likely the average Wizard might drop the first time they're hit by a goblin, it's impossible for a d10/d12 martial to get dropped by anything but a high damage roll crit.

'Without familiars Wizards are comparable to either classes in this fight' - Bear in mind the context is not just how a Wizard does in this fight it's a party primarily composed of Wizards. In the context of that statement, Wizards are outright worse than Bards.

And here's a bonus one, let's talk AC! Wizards are most likely going to have absolute garbage AC in this encounter. There is a narrow margin immediately before Goblin ambush where Mage Armor can be cast, too slow to declare it? Being conservative? Just don't think of it? And now it's a fight against 3 AC 12/13 characters.

So why is Sleep clutch? Have you tried killing two Goblins with a level 1 Fighter? Level 1 characters suck! It'll take you about four turns on level 1, if you even get to shoot every round due to the hiding shenanigans; you'll miss one third of your shots and half of the non-crit hits won't do lethal damage. Compared to that, a spell that puts two Goblins to Sleep with very little chance of failing on round 1, immediately removing their offensive output, is more contribution than a Champion and a Thief combined are likely to provide over 3-4 rounds. In magical Christmas land, the Fighter might hit all their attacks and kill a Goblin per hit but if you play the fight, say, 10 times, that's less likely than only killing 1 Goblin over those 4 turns (quick calculation puts it at over 15% to only kill a single Goblin over 4 turns of attacking with Longbow and Archery style though that's slightly favourable to the Fighter since I'm simplifying every crit is lethal and if first hit rolls lethal, second rolls lethal too).

A goblin has 7 hit points. Below average damage from a Dueling Champion is lethal damage. The same is true of a Champion using a Greatsword or Greataxe. A TWF Champion is less likely to get a one hit kill, but with two attacks with mod damage they're still doing well.

An archer is probably the worst example.

I'm also not sure what all of the magic Christmas land talk is about, you're talking like a single Fighter needs to kill four goblins. There's an entire party.

But here are the overall issues with the Sleep is best thinking:

-Sleep doesn't end encounters. You still have to dispatch the sleeping monsters.

- It's expensive given the scope of the adventuring day

- It's too susceptible to positioning and initiative

The frontline of a party that's 3 Wizards and a Life Cleric is paper-thin and the swollen backlines can't stand up to a skirmish.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 11:06 AM

You keep saying that holy aura does the work of foresight here, and I have yet to understand why.

I don't see any offensive boost here; am I missing it?

Oh yeah, it was disadvantage on enemy attacks, not advantage on attacks. Nevermind, that makes it much harder to optimize the R1 without a second Evoker.

Okay let's break down the elements here:

Advance scouting information- This is incredibly unrealistic. It's an ambush immediately at the onset of an adventure, presuming CaW style reconing to address that isn't realistic and runs sharply into assuming FF use at the poorest levels of the game.

Tactical positioning - This was just handwaved, the players don't just get to control overall positioning for optimal AOEing all the time, especially when actively being ambushed by monsters that are aiming to get mixed in with the party

Cover from the Wagon - You can only actively use this cover when you're able to act in combat, and this cover is heavily mitigated by the goblins explicitly coming from both sides of the road.

Surprise - You just handwaved this, the increased fragility of a Wizard-heavy party matters, especially at lower levels. Whilst it's fairly likely the average Wizard might drop the first time they're hit by a goblin, it's impossible for a d10/d12 martial to get dropped by anything but a high damage roll crit.

'Without familiars Wizards are comparable to either classes in this fight' - Bear in mind the context is not just how a Wizard does in this fight it's a party primarily composed of Wizards. In the context of that statement, Wizards are outright worse than Bards.

And here's a bonus one, let's talk AC! Wizards are most likely going to have absolute garbage AC in this encounter. There is a narrow margin immediately before Goblin ambush where Mage Armor can be cast, too slow to declare it? Being conservative? Just don't think of it? And now it's a fight against 3 AC 12/13 characters.

First, the situation is party seeing dead horses with arrows on them. That should ring some alarm bells. You can't blame a class for players making dumb choices.

Wizard has 50% chance of dropping. And Life Cleric isn't a "paperthin frontline", it's a heavily armored shield user with spells that can further enhance durability with spells if need be.

A goblin has 7 hit points. Below average damage from a Dueling Champion is lethal damage. The same is true of a Champion using a Greatsword or Greataxe. A TWF Champion is less likely to get a one hit kill, but with two attacks with mod damage they're still doing well.

An archer is probably the worst example.

I'm also not sure what all of the magic Christmas land talk is about, you're talking like a single Fighter needs to kill four goblins. There's an entire party.

But here are the overall issues with the Sleep is best thinking:

-Sleep doesn't end encounters. You still have to dispatch the sleeping monsters.

- It's expensive given the scope of the adventuring day

- It's too susceptible to positioning and initiative

The frontline of a party that's 3 Wizards and a Life Cleric is paper-thin and the swollen backlines can't stand up to a skirmish.

Melee types are liable to not get attacks off in the first place; archers are largely just better. A greatsword Fighter finding himself in hide'n' seek in the woods with a kiting, hiding archer Goblin is gonna be miserable. Archer also has the best hit chance by a fair margin. Most types are missing half the time, almost (45%). So it's not significantly worse than alternatives, its advantages are just less obvious.

And having to end sleeping creatures is rarely an issue. Positioning is easy to manipulate. Ergo, false problems.

Where are the REAL problems that are significant enough to make a nearly autosuccess multitarget disable not by far the strongest action on the level? These are just quibbles to the tune of +1 or +2 modifier level, not issues that would make an autohit AOE multitarget disable not absolutely gamebreaking. Nobody I've heard of who actually uses the ability has complained about those either, and I've had issues rarely enough. If these problems came up in actual play, people probably wouldn't talk about it in such a reverent tone. Which leads me to conclude "White room problems".

Dante

2022-06-14, 11:54 AM

And having to end sleeping creatures is rarely an issue. Positioning is easy to manipulate. Ergo, false problems.

Where are the REAL problems that are significant enough to make a nearly autosuccess multitarget disable not by far the strongest action on the level? These are just quibbles to the tune of +1 or +2 modifier level, not issues that would make an autohit AOE multitarget disable not absolutely gamebreaking. Nobody I've heard of who actually uses the ability has complained about those either, and I've had issues rarely enough. If these problems came up in actual play, people probably wouldn't talk about it in such a reverent tone. Which leads me to conclude "White room problems".

Enemies not in Fireball Formation or attacking from beyond Sleep range. For example, four goblins at the other end of a football field, two of them on either end of the 80-yard line and the others at the ends of the 100-yard line. (Football fields are 160' wide according to Google.)

Parking lots are generally bigger than football fields but football fields are more convenient to describe in a forum post.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 12:45 PM

Enemies not in Fireball Formation or attacking from beyond Sleep range. For example, four goblins at the other end of a football field, two of them on either end of the 80-yard line and the others at the ends of the 100-yard line. (Football fields are 160' wide according to Google.)

Parking lots are generally bigger than football fields but football fields are more convenient to describe in a forum post.

Oh, for sure, I agree it's not omnipotent - but it's a level 1 ability and for that, its problems are incredibly minor compared to its boons I find. For example, range is a problem for level 1 PCs in general I find, not just Sleep. Anyone attacking at 200'+ is going to result in at best return fire at disadvantage. Sleep can hit a target 110' away which is pretty good for a level 1 ability. Not as good as Longbow but better than the accurate range of any other weapon. Most other level 1 PCs are going to struggle with that. Greatsword Fighter might be down to 12 Dex backup Crossbow. Fireball formation...well, again, it's a 40' radius and you're fine hitting two enemies (or even one in a pinch; it's still better than Magic Missile): under most circumstances you should get pretty decent value out of it. Also maintaining that spread out a formation is tactically often really difficult: I came to the conclusion when running a military's Wargy Outriders against a party with Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern - they had advance intel so they tried to play around it. It was still common for two to get hit in spite of the terrain being sparse woodlands with little undergrowth, where the Warg Riders were well-adapted to utilize their mobility.

Point being, staying out of Fireball formation will likely be difficult for most types of opponents and even if accomplished, have tactical costs associated. So in that sense, Sleep is doing incidental "damage" to the enemy tactics if they try to avoid bunching up too. I'm not sure how big a downside that is to the spell, ultimately.

Dante

2022-06-14, 12:55 PM

Oh, for sure, I agree it's not omnipotent - but it's a level 1 ability and for that, its problems are incredibly minor compared to its boons I find. For example, range is a problem for level 1 PCs in general I find, not just Sleep. Anyone attacking at 200'+ is going to result in at best return fire at disadvantage. Sleep can hit a target 110' away which is pretty good for a level 1 ability. Not as good as Longbow but better than the accurate range of any other weapon. Most other level 1 PCs are going to struggle with that. Greatsword Fighter might be down to 12 Dex backup Crossbow. Fireball formation...well, again, it's a 40' radius and you're fine hitting two enemies (or even one in a pinch; it's still better than Magic Missile): under most circumstances you should get pretty decent value out of it. Also maintaining that spread out a formation is tactically often really difficult: I came to the conclusion when running a military's Wargy Outriders against a party with Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern - they had advance intel so they tried to play around it. It was still common for two to get hit in spite of the terrain being sparse woodlands with little undergrowth, where the Warg Riders were well-adapted to utilize their mobility.

Point being, staying out of Fireball formation will likely be difficult for most types of opponents and even if accomplished, have tactical costs associated. So in that sense, Sleep is doing incidental "damage" to the enemy tactics if they try to avoid bunching up too. I'm not sure how big a downside that is to the spell, ultimately.

This is the second time you've said this so I just have to mention: it's a 20' radius, not 40', so in the football field scenario you can't hit two goblins with it even when you get within range because they are a minimum of 20 yards apart. If it were 40' radius you could.

I wonder why you had trouble maintaining a mildly-dispersed formation. I haven't ever found it difficult to keep monsters with ranged weapons (like goblins, hobgoblins, gnolls, skeletons, etc.) 60'+ away from each other outdoors when they have any intention of doing so (which admittedly gnolls usually don't, in my games).

Football players are essentially melee-oriented, and they still wind up spreading out over an area bigger than a Hypnotic Pattern can handle:

https://i.postimg.cc/8cGV7LKY/Screen1.png (https://postimages.org/)

Hypnotic Pattern AoE is the red box.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 01:12 PM

Dante

2022-06-14, 01:55 PM

Ah, yeah, sorry, of course I meant 40' diameter (I did calculate the max range based on the 20' radius). As for the reasons for the trouble, well, one is just the sheer number of creatures: often when I use Goblins (or ranged humanoid mooks in general) there's just a lot of them. That fight had I think a total of 30ish Warg Riders (in lieu of other stuff). Another was terrain: while it was mostly sparse woodlands, there was a castle to the south which restricted their ability to circle around and one front had other allies so there were in essence two fronts for them to position themselves in. The range was also a thing; they don't want to get too close, they don't want to get too far to lose LoS (80' range without disadvantage was a problem too), and they don't want to get too close to one another; in practice they tried to operate in the 80-120' zone though some pulled further back. The PCs had decent AC so the Wargchers weren't landing many hits (Wizard was an Abjurer, Bard had Moderately Armored, Fighter had a shield & Archer Ranger still had 17ish); they didn't want disadvantage on top of it. I think two-three ended up in a single AOE multiple times.

Ah. I wouldn't consider it a problem if 2-3 out of 30 enemies got caught in the same AoE--that's about what I would expect in fact. Realistically, enemies aren't going to be perfect at maintaining dispersed formations and an alert wizard who's looking for an opportunity to kill 10% of the enemy force on a turn instead of 3% will probably find one at least once.

Anyway, back on topic: while I still like 3 Champions x 1 Cleric because they're simple to run, I like your Foresight-on-the-Rogue idea too, and I'm drifting towards the opinion that Fighter/Thief/Cleric/Wizard is probably capable of finishing the whole CR 21-30 challenge.

Eldariel

2022-06-14, 02:13 PM

Anyway, back on topic: while I still like 3 Champions x 1 Cleric because they're simple to run, I like your Foresight-on-the-Rogue idea too, and I'm drifting towards the opinion that Fighter/Thief/Cleric/Wizard is probably capable of finishing the whole CR 21-30 challenge.

That's actually fully possible and it'd be interesting to test. Though we'll have to remember, we're talking about 4-on-1 action advantage so it's not that surprising that nominally strong creatures are getting owned - single creatures just make for poor challenges even with Legendary Actions (most of them don't really have tremendously impactful LAs - though lair actions are often quite strong).

Envyus

2022-06-14, 02:47 PM

For fun here is the list of all CR 20 + Threats from the MM and Monster Expansion books. (Discounting the various Ancient Dragons there are too many of them)

CR 20
Drow Matron Mother
Leviathan
Nightwalker
Pit Fiend

CR 21
Astral Dreadnought
Hutijin
Lich
Moloch
Molydeus
Solar

CR 22
Elder Brain Dragon
Geryon
Zaratan

CR 23
Baphomet
Elder Tempest
Empyrean
Fraz-Urb’luu
Juiblex
Kraken
Zuggtmoy

CR 24
Graz'zt
Yeenoghu

CR25
Marut

CR 26
Demogorgon
Gem Greatwyrm
Orcus
Zariel

CR 27
Chromatic Greatwyrm

CR28
Metallic Greatwyrm

CR 29
None

CR 30
Aspect of Bahamut
Aspect of Tiamat
Tarrasque

Dante

2022-06-14, 03:02 PM

Envyus

2022-06-14, 03:20 PM

Plus Rak Tulkhesh and Sul Khatesh and the Illithilich.

I was not using Setting books.

Dante

2022-06-14, 03:34 PM

I was not using Setting books.

Okay, but even then the Illithilich is from Volo's.

Envyus

2022-06-14, 03:37 PM

Okay, but even then the Illithilich is from Volo's.

Yeah, I missed it cause it was one of the few creatures from Volo's that was not updated to the Monsters of the Multiverse.

Dork_Forge

2022-06-15, 04:20 AM

First, the situation is party seeing dead horses with arrows on them. That should ring some alarm bells. You can't blame a class for players making dumb choices.

They've also been dead a day, assuming that players are always going to do the right thing/the optimum thing, is unrealistic and covers weakness in approaches in the game. People make mistakes, if their character's design can't accommodate those occasional mistakes, then death is around the corner.

Wizard has 50% chance of dropping. And Life Cleric isn't a "paperthin frontline", it's a heavily armored shield user with spells that can further enhance durability with spells if need be.

...50% chance of dropping is acceptable?

The Cleric is a paper-thin frontline, because it's a frontline made of a single character, with mediocre hit points and basically no aggro-drawing features. Heavy armor alone isn't enough to make them tanky, and playing Schrodinger's spells isn't helping either. There's just no reason why monsters wouldn't run past to the squishes, and if they don't, the Cleric is probably going to go down, and is the only healer.

Having your only healer act as the only frontline is a recipe for disaster.

Melee types are liable to not get attacks off in the first place; archers are largely just better. A greatsword Fighter finding himself in hide'n' seek in the woods with a kiting, hiding archer Goblin is gonna be miserable. Archer also has the best hit chance by a fair margin. Most types are missing half the time, almost (45%). So it's not significantly worse than alternatives, its advantages are just less obvious.

We're clearly discussing the Lost Mines opening, so I have no idea where some of this is coming from:

-Two goblins explicitly rush to melee range. There will 100% be targets within range.

-The archers are explicitly 30 feet away from the party, the average movement speed of a PC.

There is no way that a melee character isn't reaching at least target.

I also have no idea where the idea of hide 'n' seek in the woods comes from, they're ambushing the road, the only time they're breaking away from this set up is when one is left and retreating.

You're just inventing hypothetical problems that aren't actually in the encounter.

Whilst the Archer is 10% more likely to hit, they're also less likely to one shot the Goblin, an issue you were just complaining about.

The non archers are going to hit most of the time (55%), and are going to kill the goblin they hit in one shot, even with below average damage.

Your clearly prefer archers, but then use their shortfall as the template for the Champion taking 'four rounds to kill a goblin.' Most Champions are not having that issue, I doubt most archers are having that issue either given that their average damage with a longbow is enough for a one shot.

And having to end sleeping creatures is rarely an issue. Positioning is easy to manipulate. Ergo, false problems.

Handwaving issues without providing solutions does not make them false problems.

Assuming 'positioning is easy' is assuming the PCs have far more control over the situation then they likely will, especially given an ambush scenario against stealthy, dextrous enemies.

Where are the REAL problems that are significant enough to make a nearly autosuccess multitarget disable not by far the strongest action on the level? These are just quibbles to the tune of +1 or +2 modifier level, not issues that would make an autohit AOE multitarget disable not absolutely gamebreaking. Nobody I've heard of who actually uses the ability has complained about those either, and I've had issues rarely enough. If these problems came up in actual play, people probably wouldn't talk about it in such a reverent tone. Which leads me to conclude "White room problems".

- Monsters not being in AOE formation, at the very least without catching allies in the crossfire.

- Reliance on Sleep is incredibly expensive, you still haven't explained what the rest of the day is meant to look like if you're popping off probably two sleeps in the first action of the day at 1st level.

- Rolling below average hamstringing it's effectiveness massively. The individual experience is rarely average.

Handwaving issues away whilst pointing towards math is white room thinking.

You want actual play annecdotes? Sure!

When one of my parties still had a Wizard in it he used Sleep against a force of Hobgoblins, he rolled above average and upcast it, knocking out iirc 4 Hobs, but not all hobs in that area.

Druid AOEs a target-rich environment, some sleeping hobs are caught in it but not killed. They hadn't even missed a turn.

Bonus facts about that Wizard! He rarely did well in initiative, even though he had a +4/5 in Tier 1 and was Chronically broke and without his familiar. Why? Because he learned how to use said familiar in forum white rooms, leading to it dying frequently and repeatedly bankrupting him.

I'm still also wondering why replacing the Wizards with Bards wouldn't just be vastly superior, since the only thing Wizards really bring to the party is their spell list and the spell you're fixated on is also a Bard spell.

The Bards have:

-Armor, so Arcane Recovery is countered and the same number of slots is available

-A larger Hit Die for improved survivability

-Better weapon profs to mix it up in combat

-The ability to inspire each other and the Cleric

-Access to healing word, reducing the chance of any PC death substantially, and the chance of TPK immensely.

x3n0n

2022-06-15, 07:39 AM

I'm still also wondering why replacing the Wizards with Bards wouldn't just be vastly superior, since the only thing Wizards really bring to the party is their spell list and the spell you're fixated on is also a Bard spell.

The context that kicked off this round of "discussion" about early-game Wizard survivability is party design in the Basic Rules (not the SRD).
(Sub-)Classes: Champion, Thief, Evoker, Life Cleric
Races: basic Human plus PHB Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling

So that's why Bard isn't a option in context.

Eldariel

2022-06-16, 01:29 AM

I'm not sure we should bother continuing this sideline since it seems like it'll be us refraining same things that have been said a million times but quickly to cover the questions directed at me:
- 50% chance to drop is annoying but meh, I mean, what are you going to do about it? The chance to hit is another 50%ish roll meaning the chance of dropping or being forced to use Shield per attack is about 25% (though if you have any cover [there's a ridge in the map in addition to the wagons and the horses and the trees], it's gonna be 40% to hit). On the upside, you take way fewer 50% hit chance attacks than most other parties - that's inherent to playing an offensively powerful party (good part is that your offense has redundancy: the Wizard dropping doesn't inherently make every fight a long slog since you have another one).
- Yeah, two Goblins run at you. They die. The other two will kite'n'hide. Greatsword sad.
- To take down two Goblins with a Sleep you need to roll 14+. That's 96%, so failure chance is lower than for anything that only fails on natural 1. That's the beauty of Sleep; even if you roll insanely poorly, it does good job compared to anything else on its level (Fighter has over 5% of not dropping a single Goblin in 4 rounds).
- Cleric has 2 HP less than Fighter, and generally better AC. Hardly paper-thin. And you have to consider it in context: we aren't talking about a frontline that needs to take 4 rounds, we are talking about a frontline with 3 Wizards backing it up so most encounters can be trivialized or at least won very quickly. The first encounter can be taken in one round if using two Sleeps for instance (though it might not be necessary to cast two Sleeps; when it's 4 on 2 you can probably kill the remaining Goblins with attacks but if things look bad and nobody is hitting, you always have the option of using a second Sleep).
- Yeah, in this particular case Dueling Fighter has the best damage but always against Goblins (and most low level monsters), melee is dangerous. Goblins are awfully good kiters.
- That's a great anecdote but that's simply a misplay on the Druid's part. When analysing abilities we should assume competency; the Druid could've e.g. just readied the AOE until after the Hobs' turn. There's no reason for the Druid to wake all those Hobs up (and if the plan is to AOE the Hobs, the Wizard can either hold off or ready the Sleep instead).