Best Short Rest Party (Assume No Coffeelock)

[Amechra]

Out of morbid curiosity...

Ignoring the Coffeelock, what's the best group of 4 characters that you can come up with for a game with very rare long rests? If you need numbers, let's go with something exotic: 1-2 fights per short rest and 7-8 short rests per long rest.

[LudicSavant]

Out of morbid curiosity...

Ignoring the Coffeelock, what's the best group of 4 characters that you can come up with for a game with very rare long rests? If you need numbers, let's go with something exotic: 1-2 fights per short rest and 7-8 short rests per long rest.

Decaf Warlocks.

You could probably fill the whole party with them TBH. Celestial can heal.

Battle Masters would make a good showing, too.

[Man_Over_Game]

Let's see...

• Moon Druids
• Your choice in Bard (Bardic Inspiration and Song of Rest are both Short-Rest resources, not to mention skills to fill in for gaps in utility spells).
• Battlemasters
• Maybe a Life Cleric for sustain (5 HP*Level every Short Rest, divided as you choose. Also, can tank and heal an ally to get double healing from spells)
• Maybe a Drunken Master Monk, or some other Ki-heavy Monk.
• Paladins with Warlock levels (maybe Vengeance Pally?)
• Divine Soul Sorcerer with Warlock Levels
• And of course Warlocks.

I suspect most lists would probably have nothing outside of these.

[Amnestic]

If you wanted class variance I'd probably have a rogue (swash or scout?), fighter (BM?), warlock (celestial+tome for rituals?) and monk (shadow or open hand?)

[OldTrees1]

1 Paladin / Warlock (ratio of 4n-3:2n-1) with Inspiring Leader. This gives so much healing on short rest that it lets you keep other characters healthy into the 9th short rest and beyond.
1 Warlock for short rest arcane power.
1 Rogue
1 warrior of some description

Basically the standard adventuring party (Cleric, Fighter, Rogue, Wizard), converted to short rest recharge. The healing non damaging effects is a weak point. Remove Curse and Greater Restoration specifically.

[KOLE]

Although your post specifies 4 characters, I'll give some options, though I think 2 are required here:

-One necessity is a Battlemaster Fighter, preferably a STR build that focuses on AC. Having their primary class feature come back on a short rest is huge in this context. STR build for tankiness. Every point of HP becomes so much more precious in this context since you can't just sleep it off overnight and hit dice are going to matter. Barbarian would be better, obviously, but without long rests he's going to be gimped on Rages meaning fighter is going to shine. d10 hit die is minimum for this since every point counts.
-Next is a Paladin, preferably Ancients or Conquest. Powerful Channel Divinity is key here since it's the only expendable resource they'll have topped up often. The Pally can assist in tanking (but take back seat to the fighter), save their smites for when Novas are really needed, Lay on Hands for emergency aid if the Fighter goes down. Stingy on spell slots unless a smite or buff can change the tide.

These are crucial because your party is going to need support and tanking to make up for lack of long rests. Both these classes have very useful short rest abilities, so they're your best bet for the front line. Rest of the party can be rounded out as such:

-Moon Druid: Their signature ability recharges on a short rest, so they're golden here. Obviously they're going to have to be stingy with their slots, but considering how tanky half the party is and assuming 2 fights at most per short rest, there's very little chance they'll be outside of wild shape often. That HP buffer alone will be huge, even if they're not contributing in combat super heavily. Considering how powerful concentration spells for Druids are, they'll probably drop 1-2 spell slots a day on powerful concentration effects and assist in Tanking/Switch hitting with wild shape forms. Again, just the HP buffer of Wildshape will really help the party. Keeping spell slots in reserve means the can be an extra emergency healer if the front line turns sour, though they may have to drop wild shape to do which is risky. Hypothetically, this character can dump everything but Con and still be effective, keeping their Concentration checks going and standing up to more punishment than average when their wildshape inevitably fails. With how tanky the rest of the party is, the issue of their wild shape losing effectiveness in later levels is downplayed, since they're not expected to tank full time, keeping them very competitive. Can switch between helping the fourth party member, focusing on monster behind the front line like archers/casters, and filling the front line gap in case of emergency.

-Celestial/Fiendlock: We all know Hexblade is broken. I won't mention it as a contender here because obviously, it's better than the rest, and uniquely suited for this type of campaign. So I'll focus on two warlock builds that would be a great contributor separately or together if you wanted to fill slot 3/4 with warlocks: Fiend Bladelock takes some time to take off compared to other builds but their temp-hp effect makes them great at taking on hordes if the tanks are focused on bigger targets. They have fantastic AOE when needed. Blade pact allows them to sub in on the front line in case of emergency. Overall, their versatility and toughness compared to others that could fit this role would make them valuable. On the flipside, a Celestial Blaster-lock would be cherry. Tomelock could give some rituals to help out this thin-stretched party, like Leomund's tiny hut, while Chainlock could get a very valuable scout to help avoid encounters entirely. In either case, Celestial locks can blast as good as any Warlock but they can heal when needed as well. In an ideal scenario, this Warlock can single-target focus with EB, save their slots, and dump some decent Cure Wounds on wounded tanks right before the short rest, getting those slots back and reducing HD usage for the tanks.

-Any Non-AT Rogue: Rogues don't need anything but a good dex and a bow. At-will single target DPR is never a bad thing, especially with a wall of tanks. Can also scout and sneak to avoid encounters. Maybe not as versatile as others on the list, but extremely dependable, and if the rest of the party focuses on combat, the Rogue could be valuable as a skillmonkey or face that isn't really compromising their combat ability at all. Since your spell casters can't drop slots to solve problems as much outside of combat, the Rogue can be there to handle those things.

-Any monk, especially Shadow: Much maligned and underestimated, a monk in this context could be terrific in the hands of a good player. Surgical and precise, a monk can skirt the lines, handle threats, get in and get out without taking much damage, thus saving the healing for people who really need it, I.E. the Tanks. Their short-rest synergy means they'll be going into most combats at full strength, encouraged to abuse Patient Defense to keep themselves on their feet. Personally, I feel like a Rogue will do most of these better, but I have a bias, and Stunning Strike is no joke. Shadow in particular has some decent Control/Denial ability fueled by short rest resources, making them really shine here.

-Bladesinger Wizard: Probably the worst pick here, but Bladesong is a short rest resource, meaning they'll consistently have it up. This would be a good stop-gap class, say 2nd line, keeping the front line from getting completely swarmed and dropping effective concentration spells once per encounter like Slow and Hypnotic Pattern. The Bladesong allows them to not be as much of a liability near the front line as any other Wizard, but it's still risky, and ultimately without careful pacing they're going to coming into big encounters without spell slots, making them a d6 hit die class with above-average ac and Extra Attack. Not ideal, but keeping plenty of ritual spells on hand and things like a Familiar may allow their utility to really shine, making up for their relatively lackluster combat contribution. Personally, in the rules lined out, this role would excite me the most because there's going to a constant juggle and strain on my resources, which honestly sounds interesting. Still, probably the least ideal, even compared to the Monk.

[Dork_Forge]

An interesting challenge, going for 4 person party I think I'd go with:

-Battle Master Fighter, Dex based to switch between ranged and melee as necessary, maybe picking up Martial Adept to bump their pool up

-Moon Druid for primary tanking, this makes their slots relatively plentiful to act as a back up caster/utility caster

-Celestial Warlock, dedicated long rest healing pool with short rest slots for combat casting, probably Tomelock to increase cantrips and gain rituals

-Either a Rogue (inclined to either a Mastermind or Swashbuckler here) or a Monk (I'd go Kensei since they can burn their Ki freely with solid at will abilties still and have the option of being decent-good archers)

Probably taking races that give abilities to add to their talent pool (like racial casting, V. Human feats etc.)

[Neoh]

Goblins.

Fighters (not Eldritch Knight), Battlemaster is super great and Champion is ok

Warlocks. Hexblade would be the best for a Goblin, Celestial is cool too with some temporary hit points each short rest and some healing without using your spell slots.

Rogues have unlimited Sneak Attacks/rest so it's good. Pick whatever subclass fits your playstyle.

Death Clerics are surprisingly good at higher levels with their Channel Divinity damage, twice per short rest as soon as level 6. Give them Magic Initiate or multiclass for Booming Blade. Add Divine Strike and they have some pretty mean melee attacks. Also twin Toll the Dead at level 1 on targets that are within 5 feet of each other.

Moon Druids are close to perfection for a short rest party, Wildshape all you want, have some spells on the side to support your party even more.

Monks regain their ki points on short rest, although I don't like the class, having someone spamming stunning strike throughout the dayseems like a good idea. I guess either Kensei or Open Hand.

Paladins are alright, they do have a big pool of healing that doesn't use any spell slots, can cure poisons and diseases too. Maybe some levels in Hexblade Warlocks would help, getting 2 smites on short rest is nice. They have a nice base DPR too, particularly with PAM for their Improved Divine Strike.

Wizards, Sorcerers, Rangers and Bards are pretty meh. At least Wizard gets some goodies on short rest + ritual casting.

Barbarians have unlimited Reckless Attack for advantage on GWM so I guess they still have that going for them.

Season your team to taste.

[MaxWilson]

Out of morbid curiosity...

Ignoring the Coffeelock, what's the best group of 4 characters that you can come up with for a game with very rare long rests? If you need numbers, let's go with something exotic: 1-2 fights per short rest and 7-8 short rests per long rest.

Off the top of my head, a fun one would be:

1 Goblin Moon Druid with Skulker feat, Resilient (Con), and eventually Warcaster
1 Jorasco (Mark of Healing) Life Cleric 1/Celestialock X with Mounted Combatant feat
1 Vadalis (Mark of Handling) Hexblade with Spell Sniper feat
1 Lyandar (Mark of Storms) Hexblade with Inspiring Leader feat

You've got one short-rest tank with darkfighting dominance, a whole bunch of short rest healing, and ability to do tricks like have the Moon Druid turn into a T-Rex which heavily-armored the Mounted Combatant rides (while Dodging, and possibly Sanctuary-protected too unless your DM rules that Sanctuary + Mounted Combatant just infinite loops until Sanctuary fails) to prevent the T-Rex from being targeted, a bunch of ranged attacks, and access to a whole pile of meat shield summons for the ranged attackers to hide behind.

The party comes online at level 2, and remains fun until level 17ish, maybe longer.

[KOLE]

Another important question in this context would be how level ups are accomplished. A lot of people only allow them on a long rest. I usually allow them to top off all resources when they occur. If that were the case, levels 1-5 would be a lot easier to account for here, assuming 1-2 sessions per level as the DMG implies.

Barbarians have unlimited Reckless Attack for advantage on GWM so I guess they still have that going for them.

With Long Rests being sparse, and without Rage consistently granting resistance, Reckless is quickly going to become a liability IMO. The extra damage isn’t going to keep up with the extra damage taken, especially since crits will start stacking up. You can only stretch that d12 hit die so far.

[Emongnome777]

Thief rogue with healer feat will provide boat loads of healing. Add in a high-Cha PC with inspiring leader and hit points will stretch for ages.

[kazaryu]

Out of morbid curiosity...

Ignoring the Coffeelock, what's the best group of 4 characters that you can come up with for a game with very rare long rests? If you need numbers, let's go with something exotic: 1-2 fights per short rest and 7-8 short rests per long rest.

alright, so first off, lemme define some terms. The way im taking 'best' to mean is both 'effective' and 'fun'. And secondly, im going to say that im assuming this is starting at lvl 1. with that in mind, most full casters are gonna be out. Specifically because at low levels they're not going to do much in most fights. and thats unlikely to be fun for them. yes, they can be effective. for the key fights that they've saved their limited spell slots for. But overall they're going to spend tehir turn doing basically nothing. so. without further ado,

The caster: V. human (inspiring leader) celestial, tome pact warlock. After a few levels, start going sorcerer (divine soul possibly, if you feel like you need more cleric in the party, if not then probably shadow for the defense, and eventually hound of ill omen which adds more HP to the field, and can allow you to more efficiently use save based spells like hold person. this character is first and foremost a blaster, with a strong secondary of healing/support. SO the invocations i'd recommend are agonizing blast and book of ancient secrets. (if you don't plan to pick up book of ancient secrets, go chain pact instead.)

The Meat: V. human (Healer) battlemaster fighter, S&B style. either defense or dueling fighting style. could go str or dex. str giving it easier access to high AC, with more limited access to ranged attacks. meanwhile going dex would trade 1 AC for full ranged scaling. either way, Its a tank with some great combat utility, Its ability to grant a guaranteed attack pairs extra well with...

The Face: V. human (healer) Rogue (either inquisitive or Swashbuckler favoring swashbuckler). Now, the obvious question is why not thief? well, having read the thief feature, and read the rules regarding the 'use an object' 'action' it seems fairly clear that the two aren't meant to interact. the 'use an object' action specifies its for doing things that are quick, and occur in conjunction with other things. example it gives are drawing your sword or throwing a lever, opening a door. things like that. the benefit of the thief is that it allows you to do this a second time in a round as a bonus action instead of as an action. That being said, as your DM, if they're cool with you using the healer's kit as a BA, then go for thief. otherwise swashbuckler or inquisitive is what you want for their self sufficiency. into the build itself, as indicated, they're the party face, so i'd prioritize cha second. and pick up at least one social skill as an expertise.

The Joker: This is where things get harry. In terms of pure effectiveness, its probably best to throw a barbarian here. like a bear totem barb. or, if you're not worried about class overlap, another rogue/fighter/warlock..or possibly just a bear totem barbarian. However, thats kinda the easy way out. So for this slow imma list a few options that i think are probably sub-par, but can work well so long as the player can handle being limited in tehir options:

Necromancer wizard: essentially, you're going to be using your limited spell slots for zombies (once you hit lvl5). so you're not as worried about using them in combat. meanwhile in combat you have a small horde that you get to play with. the necromancer can also afford to go con primary since you're not being as worried about casting. If you do cast a spell thats not animate dead, then just focus on buff spells like haste.

Enchantment Wizard: More for out of combat situations. but even in combat, the enchanter gets 2 at-will abilities as their first benefits. obviously, one of them is a reaction, but if you're the type of player that enjoys these things. you could potentially have fun combining their instinctive charm feature, with some social rolls in order to turn enemies against each other.

Life cleric: Now, the big reason i didn't include this as one of the primary characters is that their channel divinity, by itself, is just too weak to carry the class at low levels. lemme explain. at level 2 when you get the feature, you cna expect your allies to have at most ~24 HP. (most of them lower). which means the most your channel divinity can heal them up to is 12. (or..once again, lower. much lower in some case). and while 12 HP can consistently take 2 hits. there's really not that much of a difference between 2 HP and 4 HP. The big place this feature would come in handy at low levels is that its an AoE get everyone up from 0. which isn't bad, as far as oh, **** buttons go. but if that situation never come up, then this feature is gonna feel lack luster until people have enough HP for it to matter.

War Cleric: probably a better option than life once you it 6. until then you're sort of keeping up with the fighter in terms of # of attacks per round...although you've probably got a worse to-hit modifier. but at level 6 you get the option to grant to rogue or the fighter what is essentially a guaranteed hit. very useful. pick up mass healing word and you have an oh-**** button that is on-par (at least at that level) with the life clerics channel divinity. It doesn't scale very well, obviously, but you also shouldn't be needing it all that much. Of course, for an ultra late campaign the life cleric is gonna end up serving better with its guaranteed maxed healing.


Moon Druid: Great, near infinite HP. definitely a good way to stretch out the druid HP. problem is, you aren't going to be able to afford to cast a concentration spell before wildshaping. which means, similarly to the life cleric, its literally just the wildshape. and im not sure that that is going to be enough fun by itself. But it could be for the right player.

Lore Bard: expertise, cutting words, magical secrets. the lore bard has a solid array of abilites beyond their spells that can really help a party out. cutting words means you take less damage, meanwhile song of healing means your short rests are that much more effective. combined with the healer feat and you're looking and pretty significant healing on a short rest, even without count hit dice spent. not too shabby. overall probably one of the most viable full casters to throw into a short rest campaign.

[KOLE]

Bard: expertise, cutting words, magical secrets. the lore bard has a solid array of abilites beyond their spells that can really help a party out. cutting words means you take less damage, meanwhile song of healing means your short rests are that much more effective. combined with the healer feat and you're looking and pretty significant healing on a short rest, even without count hit dice spent. not too shabby. overall probably one of the most viable full casters to throw into a short rest campaign.

I had written off Bards for this challenge but Song of Rest is really going to get some mileage here, that’s a great point. After level 5 you’re going to be regularly topped off on inspiration too. Still, I think the extra survivability of Valor/Swords might beat out Cutting Words, especially since extra Magical Secrets is going to matter a lot less here.

[Eldariel]

Bladesinger Wizard would get some nice mileage out of their Extra Attack and Bladesong this way. That's definitely one for the road: we're looking at maybe 16 encounters per long rest so you can still generally afford one spell per encounter in the mid-levels. Definitely worth having one around. Of course, it's also a question of how much we're willing to abuse permanentish effects. Animate Dead, Magic Jar, etc. have very real benefits on an all-day basis. This makes such spells particularly efficient in such a settings.

Moon Druid is pretty obvious. Best low level warrior class, a great caster and one of the better short rest classes with enough spell slots to rather quickly cover the whole day with Conjure Animals, which is pretty good use of your spell slots.


This actually raises the question: how long actual time passes between long rests? Encounters are irrelevant in this regard: Animate Dead, Conjure Animals and such are amazing regardless of the number of encounters if you still get rests every ~24-48 hours but if you rest once a week, that's going to begin forcing you to conserve your resources.

[kazaryu]

I had written off Bards for this challenge but Song of Rest is really going to get some mileage here, that’s a great point. After level 5 you’re going to be regularly topped off on inspiration too. Still, I think the extra survivability of Valor/Swords might beat out Cutting Words, especially since extra Magical Secrets is going to matter a lot less here.

hmmm, i don't think so.
swords bards extra defense is purely for you, if you stand back from the main fight then its not neccesary.

valor bards damage reduction is almost identical to the cutting words, but worse. i.e. cutting words reduces an attack roll, combat inspiration increases AC, two sides of the same coin. however, cutting words is something that you can apply to any attack roll (within 60 feet) without when the attack roll occurs. combat inspiration you'd need to preload onto a target, and hope they need it. the difference can be small, but is definitely worth noting. besides, if you're standing back then you typically don't have much to do with your reaction anyway, and i'd rather let the fighter/rogue save their reaction for Opportunity attacks. (or in the rogues case, uncanny dodge).

as for magical secrets, well, that really depends on ALOT of things. picking up a spell like find familiar means you can pass out theoretically infinite advantage on just a single casting. Bards get ritual casting, which means even if/when your familiar dies you can summon it without losing a spell slot. Spells like counterspell are always nice to have, even if you can't use them *quite* as often, they can still come in mega clutch when you do need to cast them. same with fireball. i agree that it loses *some* mileage, but that doesn't make it unimportant. honestly though, i think find familiar is your best best. because a short rest focused party is typically going to be a martial focused party, and that is where familiars shine.

[KOLE]

hmmm, i don't think so.
swords bards extra defense is purely for you, if you stand back from the main fight then its not neccesary.

valor bards damage reduction is almost identical to the cutting words, but worse. i.e. cutting words reduces an attack roll, combat inspiration increases AC, two sides of the same coin. however, cutting words is something that you can apply to any attack roll (within 60 feet) without when the attack roll occurs. combat inspiration you'd need to preload onto a target, and hope they need it. the difference can be small, but is definitely worth noting. besides, if you're standing back then you typically don't have much to do with your reaction anyway, and i'd rather let the fighter/rogue save their reaction for Opportunity attacks. (or in the rogues case, uncanny dodge).

I was mainly thinking of the extra proficiencies meaning much better AC for the Valor and Swords Bard. AC is going to mean a lot in the long run, since HD are going to become a precious resource in this campaign. You have a good point about their Bardic Inspiration use, but I still think they may edge out Cutting Words in the long run. Also, in my experience, staying outside of combat is wishful thinking, but perhaps my DM is crueler than most. You need to be able to stay on your feet when the monsters inevitably close in on you, because it's inevitably going to happen.

With how scant your slots will be, I just have a hard time seeing magical secrets making a massive impact in this context.

This actually raises the question: how long actual time passes between long rests? Encounters are irrelevant in this regard: Animate Dead, Conjure Animals and such are amazing regardless of the number of encounters if you still get rests every ~24-48 hours but if you rest once a week, that's going to begin forcing you to conserve your resources.

Great question. I assumed this was Gritty Realism rules, though that's not exactly implied.

[MaxWilson]

Moon Druid: Great, near infinite HP. definitely a good way to stretch out the druid HP. problem is, you aren't going to be able to afford to cast a concentration spell before wildshaping. which means, similarly to the life cleric, its literally just the wildshape. and im not sure that that is going to be enough fun by itself. But it could be for the right player.

One casting of Conjure Animals lasts a whole hour, and there's only 7 to 16 fights per day, so by level 7 or so you probably can afford to cast a spell for each fight that isn't already using Conjure Animals.

1 Conjure Woodland Creatures or Polymorph: 2 fights
3 Conjure Animals: 2 fights x 3
3 Spike Growth or Moonbeam or Pass Without Trace: 1 fight x 3 (or 2 fights x 3 for Pass Without Trace, especially on a Goblin who can use it in combat)
4 Entangle or Faerie Fire: 1 fight x 4

Total: 15-19 fights by 7th level, more as you go up in levels.

If you try to push it to 50 fights in 24 hours it gets a lot iffier for the long-rest casters, but 16 fights is still totally doable.

[Kane0]

Fighter, Monk and Warlock supplemented by either Rogue or a caster with a short rest resource strong enough to justify the long rest spell slots. Bardic Inspiration, Cleric channel and Druid wildshape would be the prime candidates.

Healer and Inspiring Leader would be very important feats to consider.

[th3g0dc0mp13x]

This would be a ton of fun. So ideally you want a large amount of short rest features that cover multiple types of combats.

Wild Hunt Battlemaster Fighter: This allows you to have your maneuvers and gives you an additional (Lvl+Con)*8=32 HP per day at level 1 at level 10 it's something like 92

Mark of healing Halfling Celestial Warlock: healing goodies and short rest Aid, plus short rest healing in general.
Background: Boros Legionnaire

Red Dragonborn Sun Soul Monk.

Human Variant Hexblade Warlock Background: This one is pretty obviously just a pure damage guy. Heat metal, Call lightning, Animate objects. It also has the inspiring leader so (4xlevel+Cha)*8. So at level 1 that is an extra 128 HP for the party per day.
Background: Izzet Engineer

[kazaryu]

One casting of Conjure Animals lasts a whole hour, and there's only 7 to 16 fights per day, so by level 7 or so you probably can afford to cast a spell for each fight that isn't already using Conjure Animals.

1 Conjure Woodland Creatures or Polymorph: 2 fights
3 Conjure Animals: 2 fights x 3
3 Spike Growth or Moonbeam or Pass Without Trace: 1 fight x 3 (or 2 fights x 3 for Pass Without Trace, especially on a Goblin who can use it in combat)
4 Entangle or Faerie Fire: 1 fight x 4

Total: 15-19 fights by 7th level, more as you go up in levels.

If you try to push it to 50 fights in 24 hours it gets a lot iffier for the long-rest casters, but 16 fights is still totally doable.

hmmmm, thats a good point. although lvl 7 is a bit late to start being able to contribute so consistently. albeit it'd still be earlier than i presumed. so, eh?

biggest limiter is that you're gonna be dropping concentration on some of those, over the course of the day. especially if you plan to go animal form. but i guess thats just kinda par for the course anyway. i don't imagine too many moon druids drop their wildshape mid combat just because they lost concentration?

another thing in the favor of druids that i thought of though was healing spirit. even if the DM nerfed it so it only worked 1/round healing spirit with a 1 lvl cleric dip would be powerful. But would it be particularly fun to limit your spell slot usage so that out of combat you can drop a fat heal? idk.

but yeah, overall you do make a good point, although i think that similar logic applies to other full casters. im feeling too lazy RN to look up if others have such high duration spells.

I was mainly thinking of the extra proficiencies meaning much better AC for the Valor and Swords Bard. AC is going to mean a lot in the long run, since HD are going to become a precious resource in this campaign. You have a good point about their Bardic Inspiration use, but I still think they may edge out Cutting Words in the long run. Also, in my experience, staying outside of combat is wishful thinking, but perhaps my DM is crueler than most. You need to be able to stay on your feet when the monsters inevitably close in on you, because it's inevitably going to happen.

With how scant your slots will be, I just have a hard time seeing magical secrets making a massive impact in this context.

ehhh, i mean there's a good argument to be made for personal defenses. after all, if you're the only one alive, you're also the one capable of dropping a mass cure wounds so..but IMO its not just about your HP. like, at best, your HP is about 1/4 of the parties HP. so if your concern is conserving HD, then ultra focusing on your specific defenses is a bit overkill. meanwhile lore bard cutting words can more easily be deployed to minimize damage the party as a whole. and also has the ability to be used somewhat offensively by reducing ability checks. although that particular use is...a bit niche...but then if you do have a fighter in teh party, it could super **** them up in giving the fighter an easier time tripping them.

but also, a strong argument for magical secrets...healing spirit. even if the DM nerfs it so that its only 1/round, it scales with level. meaning that you get 35HP per spell level. so thats 70hp when you are able to pick it up (3rd spell level). and thats at a level where average max HP is like, 49. so especially when combined with song of rest, and the healer feat. there's a good chance that even if your party is walking away from a fight at 1 hP per person, you get everyone back up to max HP and it only costs 1 spell slot (albeit a high level spell slot) and 1-2 HD. which is pretty good.

overall personally i'd take lore bard over either of the 2 gish bards just because its more of a team player, and that seems to be how you're gonna get the most fun out of a full caster, play with the team. But thats just me.

[MaxWilson]

hmmmm, thats a good point. although lvl 7 is a bit late to start being able to contribute so consistently. albeit it'd still be earlier than i presumed. so, eh?

biggest limiter is that you're gonna be dropping concentration on some of those, over the course of the day. especially if you plan to go animal form. but i guess thats just kinda par for the course anyway. i don't imagine too many moon druids drop their wildshape mid combat just because they lost concentration?

another thing in the favor of druids that i thought of though was healing spirit. even if the DM nerfed it so it only worked 1/round healing spirit with a 1 lvl cleric dip would be powerful.

Healing Spirit was already nerfed in errata: see https://media.wizards.com/2020/dnd/d...GtE-Errata.pdf Now it's fairly useless for anything except pop-up healing, similar to Healing Word. Aura of Vitality is back to being king of the healing hill, which means you want a Jorasco (Mark of Healing) Life Cleric 1/Celestialock 5+ for 240 HP of healing per short rest. Adding Sorc 3 on top can roughly double that but costs you eventual access to True Polymorph/Psychic Scream/Foresight.

Druid spells like Conjure Animal start to come online at roughly the point where wildshape starts to taper off in relative damage impact and shift more to control. I'd expect the druid to be contributing all along, just gradually transitioning to more and more spell support.

A human druid can have both Warcaster and Resilient (Con) online by level 4, so by the time you reach level 5 you either have excellent concentration or feats that you valued even more than concentration (e.g. Skulker on a Goblin Druid). Losing concentration therefore shouldn't be a big concern--it will typically happen less often than running out of wildshape HP, 1/16 of all hits or less depending on your wildshaped Con bonus.

[KorvinStarmast]

-Battle Master Fighter, Dex based to switch between ranged and melee as necessary
-Moon Druid
-Celestial Warlockprobably Tomelock to increase cantrips and gain rituals

I've got a gal who is that, she's pretty good. (it helps that she found a wand of web...)
-Either a Rogue (inclined to either a Mastermind or Swashbuckler here) or a Monk (I'd go Kensei since they can burn their Ki freely with solid at will abilties still and have the option of being decent-good archers)
[/QUOTE]
And for a five person party:
Battlemaster, Druid, Tomelock, Rogue, Monk,
But, as an aside, clerics recharge their channel divinity on a short rest, and Bards recharge Bardic Inspiration on a short rest after level 5. Otherwise, bard for sure as the fifth.

Thief rogue with healer feat will provide boat loads of healing. Add in a high-Cha PC with inspiring leader and hit points will stretch for ages.

Maybe the Tome lock? I like your idea on the healer feat

As to Bards: I think the extra magical secrets makes Lore Bard such a great choice as it will allow the group to fill a few spell casting holes ...

[Naanomi]

We did a short-lived game where we worked to have a lot of party synergy; which included minimizing need for long rests (we also all had to have passable stealth, and everyone had to be an elf to minimize long rest time). Worked pretty well.

I think the end result was...
~Shadar-Kai Battlemaster Urchin
~Wood-Elf Scout Pirate
~Wood-Elf Shadow-Monk Hermit
~Eladrin Celestial-Pact Tomelok Spy

[Dork_Forge]

I've got a gal who is that, she's pretty good. (it helps that she found a wand of web...)
-Either a Rogue (inclined to either a Mastermind or Swashbuckler here) or a Monk (I'd go Kensei since they can burn their Ki freely with solid at will abilties still and have the option of being decent-good archers)

And for a five person party:
Battlemaster, Druid, Tomelock, Rogue, Monk,
But, as an aside, clerics recharge their channel divinity on a short rest, and Bards recharge Bardic Inspiration on a short rest after level 5. Otherwise, bard for sure as the fifth.
Maybe the Tome lock? I like your idea on the healer feat

As to Bards: I think the extra magical secrets makes Lore Bard such a great choice as it will allow the group to fill a few spell casting holes ...[/QUOTE]

Depending on the level this is played at (I don't think we were given any idea of that), full casters are going to have to rely primarily on cantrips, rituals and class abilities so it really depends on what kind of Cleric (a Life Cleric would be a good healer still, but only if the party are regularly dipping below half hp etc.), a Swords Bard would be a good compromise of caster and martial ability.