How to Increase Survivability

[Eldariel]

Wizard is probably the best bet. Use positioning and your ablative defenses. Numeric defenses are nice (the suggested Pally is pretty tough and having one in a party can be convenient especially against enemies who spam save-or-X effects like Bodaks or whatever) but the toughest guy goes down in a single round to appropriate enemies. Best bets for survivability:
- Scouting ability: this is the most important and why you should have cantrips, spells and minions to this end if you wanna live. Anyone dies in a well set trap so you need to be sure you won't enter those.
- Good Perception-modifier (Wizard has familiar so they get this practically for free where others need to put a feat and a skill and a high Wis-score or Expertise here)
- Ability to avoid surprise
- Ability to avoid aberrant rolls (criticals from enemy and poor saving throws)
- Resistance to saving throws
- Ability to deflect attacks
- Ability to disable extremely dangerous enemies quickly to avoid deadification
- Ability to put meatwalls between you and the enemy

In order, I'd suggest:
- Alert-feat
- Lucky-feat
- Resilient-feat (ergo, be Variant Human: you need all the feats you can get)

- Get a familiar (the cheapest way to get reasonable Passive Perception and one that has strong Darkvision too in the Owl)
- Have minionmancy (Wizard's best bets are Animate Dead, or if that's problematic, Tiny Servant)
- Fight at range
- Use cantrips and rituals to cover your resting and have as many advantages as possible for combat (carry around soil with Mold Earth to use as cover, use Minor Illusion for safe spots before you see enemies, travel on Phantom Steeds and rest in Tiny Huts even inside safe zones, etc.)
- Use disabling spells in combat
- Never engage in melee and avoid being in spell/effect range for enemies
- Go prone whenever engaging ranged enemies at range


Vuman Wizard 5 is pretty well set. Before that point too, but level 5 is the point where you are able to ignore most things. Probably Chronurgist: those two rerolls coupled with Int to Initiative mean you will act first most of the time and you have an extra layer of safety. Not quite as strong offensively as Diviner but the Int to Initiative and higher level abilities are the difference makers. Not to mention Dunamancy: Gift of Alacrity + 16 Dex + 16 Int + Alert = +11 + 1d8 to Initiative. And then you roll the d20. This means you'll rarely need to waste resources on acting first; your minimum roll is 13 and that's rather unlikely to occur.

Obviously your stats should be Int > Dex > Con. 16 Dex and 16 Int give you passable AC too and 15 Con means Res: Con will push you to 16 on level 8 where your defensive scaling is complete. Lucky is more important to avoid key crits and saving throw failures and to enable Counterspell more reliably so it has to wait. While your other stats will be dog**** you'll at least have Wis save proficiency helping you out, which coupled with Lucky and Chronurgist makes you reasonably able to make your saves.


Cleric and Druid are both also doable but ultimately Wizard rituals and spells are a huge survivability enhancer. You really don't want to get surprised and when you do, you want to be at the ready to disable the surprisers before they get to mess you up, and to position so that you don't get hit in melee.

If I got to build a whole party, it'd be:
- Lore Bard
- Chronurgist Wizard
- Shepherd Druid [Moon would be nice for 2-4 but Shepherd is what you want for 5-20 and it isn't bad in 1-4 either - getting a stack of temporary HP for the party on 2 is really nice and it makes the non-Moon Wildshape kinda work there]
- Arcana Cleric [though there's something to be said for Grave too]

Minimise randomness and maximise your ability to disable enemies before they can pose a meaningful threat. Also maximum minionmancy [Lore Bard should also be picking up Animate Dead or Conjure Animals on 6].

[Droppeddead]

Why is no one recommending totem barb(bear)?
Or any barb for that matter?
Really asking cause I feel I am missing something.

Bearbarians are really good at individual surviving but they don't really bring anything that helps other characters survive.

Question for OP: When you say that you get banished when you die, does that mean that any resurrecting spells are more or less useless or is it more "when you can't be brought back to life anymore"?

[da newt]

Be smart enough to retreat.

[MaxWilson]

Be smart enough to retreat.

^This. So much.

Also be smart enough to reconnoiter things in advance if you can.

[KorvinStarmast]

Artillerist with a healing cannon

Is awesome, Yes.

I'm curious as to why you suggest a Rogue? I don't find them especially valuable in any role.

Expertise and the Exploration bit of finding traps, disarming traps, picking locks, etc. (Bards can't get tool expertise, just skill expertise IIRC)
Rogue also deals some nice focus fire on selected targets. If you play as a team, you set up the rogue for attacks with advantage or an adjacent ally ... but I won't disagree with sliding in "Lore Bard" for "Rogue" for the skill monkey role since you can get some more heals from the Bard.
There is something to be said for applying damage; I have found that a bard is not a great damage dealer until later on, but can help the party get by in a lot of situations.

The previously mentioned "chain lock scout" is a great fit for slot 4 (could be anyone)

[Eldariel]

Expertise and the Exploration bit of finding traps, disarming traps, picking locks, etc. (Bards can't get tool expertise, just skill expertise IIRC)

While Bard can't get Expertise in Thieves' Tools specifically, they can get Expertise in all the relevant skills and they have access to Enhance Ability and even potentially Skill Empowerment for the critical rolls so ultimately a Bard is at least as good as a Rogue when it comes down to the wire because they are better able to buff their skills with resources.

[Dork_Forge]

While Bard can't get Expertise in Thieves' Tools specifically, they can get Expertise in all the relevant skills and they have access to Enhance Ability and even potentially Skill Empowerment for the critical rolls so ultimately a Bard is at least as good as a Rogue when it comes down to the wire because they are better able to buff their skills with resources.

Skill Empowerment is a 5th level spell and has no bearing on using Thieves' Tools, Enhance Ability can certainly be nice but runs into the issue of both 1)being an opportunity cost on a spells known caster and 2)requiring a resource that you may or may not have at the time or need later on.

A Bard is a great choice for a skill based character, but they excel at social situations primarily and being competent to some degree otherwise, the Rogue on the otherhand excels at being a specialist, especially in the Dex arena (reinforced by getting their Expertises far earlier, an additional ASI and if playing at those levels, Reliable Talent).

You have to invest quite a bit to get as good as a Rogue is with Thieve's tools and if the game is 11+ it's likely you'll never be as good at it unless you invest to a large degree to achieve it.

[Techcaliber]

Question for OP: When you say that you get banished when you die, does that mean that any resurrecting spells are more or less useless or is it more "when you can't be brought back to life anymore"?

At this time I can’t answer that, as he’s still getting details figured out. Hopefully, if we have access to them, he’ll allow the use of them.

[Merudo]

Skill Empowerment is a 5th level spell and has no bearing on using Thieves' Tools, Enhance Ability can certainly be nice but runs into the issue of both 1)being an opportunity cost on a spells known caster and 2)requiring a resource that you may or may not have at the time or need later on.

A Bard is a great choice for a skill based character, but they excel at social situations primarily and being competent to some degree otherwise, the Rogue on the otherhand excels at being a specialist, especially in the Dex arena (reinforced by getting their Expertises far earlier, an additional ASI and if playing at those levels, Reliable Talent).

You have to invest quite a bit to get as good as a Rogue is with Thieve's tools and if the game is 11+ it's likely you'll never be as good at it unless you invest to a large degree to achieve it.

Any character can grab Thieves's Tools proficiency, for essentially free.

So, for levels 1-8, the main advantage of being a Rogue is a +2 / +3 from Expertise when using Thieves's Tools.

Now, Bard/Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer all get access to Enhance Ability, which can provide advantage on any Dexterity check, for roughly a +5 when using Thieves's Tool, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand.

In addition, a Bard can use Bardic Inspiration for an average of +3.5 / +4.5 to a skill check. Clerics and Druids can cast Guidance, for a very spammable +2.5 to a skill check.

Traps and locked doors don't come that often anyhow, and when they do, they often can be bypassed by other means.

So the bonus a Rogue gets from being Expert in Thieves's Tools is relatively minor, easily replicable, and rarely of significance.

I might consider a Rogue a good pick in a trap-heavy campaign (Tomb of Horror), but that's it.

[Eldariel]

Any character can grab Thieves's Tools proficiency, for essentially free.

So, for levels 1-8, the main advantage of being a Rogue is a +2 / +3 from Expertise when using Thieves's Tools.

Now, Bard/Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer all get access to Enhance Ability, which can provide advantage on any Dexterity check, for roughly a +5 when using Thieves's Tool, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand.

In addition, a Bard can use Bardic Inspiration for an average of +3.5 / +4.5 to a skill check. Clerics and Druids can cast Guidance, for a very spammable +2.5 to a skill check.

Traps and locked doors don't come that often anyhow, and when they do, they often can be bypassed by other means.

So the bonus a Rogue gets from being Expert in Thieves's Tools is relatively minor, easily replicable, and rarely of significance.

I might consider a Rogue a good pick in a trap-heavy campaign (Tomb of Horror), but that's it.

The more important part is finding the trap anyways. To that end you need good Investigation and Perception. Observant and Expertise help but even there, Enhance Ability pushes the Bard over the top. Finding the trap is the key part: after that you can figure out how to deal with it and what buffs to use. Remember that Enhance Ability lasts an hour too and magic traps can also be disabled via. Int: Arcana.

[Dork_Forge]

Any character can grab Thieves's Tools proficiency, for essentially free.

You can get it from a background, this isn't free, it's investing your background in it instead of a different tool or skill.

So, for levels 1-8, the main advantage of being a Rogue is a +2 / +3 from Expertise when using Thieves's Tools.

A Rogue is a Dex primary/SAD class, it won't just benefit from Expertise, but also a higher Dex modifier (there's also multiple subclass features that enhance Thieves' Tools use).

Now, Bard/Cleric/Druid/Sorcerer all get access to Enhance Ability, which can provide advantage on any Dexterity check, for roughly a +5 when using Thieves's Tool, Stealth, and Sleight of Hand.

They can have Enhance Ability (an opportunity cost) and then they need to invest a 2nd level spell to use it, until later in tier 2 a 2nd level spell is a significant cost. Just because you could possible bridge a gap to a degree with a spell, doesn't make it as good as actually being good at that thing (espeically since you can just roll low twice with advantage...)

In addition, a Bard can use Bardic Inspiration for an average of +3.5 / +4.5 to a skill check. Clerics and Druids can cast Guidance, for a very spammable +2.5 to a skill check.

Bards can't inspire themselves, so who are they inspiring? (using more resources to bridge a deficit isn't making this more convincing btw)

Yes Guidance is an insanely good cantrip.

Traps and locked doors don't come that often anyhow, and when they do, they often can be bypassed by other means.

That is a wildly campaign dependent thing, there's no basis for that claim. Here's an annecdote: I've seen and used locked doors and traps in every single campaign I've played in, ran or watched. I've never seen Enhance Ability in actual play and seen it only in one streamed game.

Even if something can be bypassed via other means, that doesn't mean that the bypass is of equal desirability (might generate noise or force the party down a path of greater resistance).

So the bonus a Rogue gets from being Expert in Thieves's Tools is relatively minor, easily replicable, and rarely of significance.

In your opinion, but you also handwave the fact that all you've presented are dice based benefits. Static benefits are always going to be better than dice based since you can actually count on them. When failure can mean negative consequences (like setting off what you're trying to disarm) then that reliability matters.

Though you at no point addressed Reliable Talent? What tricks are the casters pulling out to easily replicate that level of success?

I might consider a Rogue a good pick in a trap-heavy campaign (Tomb of Horror), but that's it.

So you're also reducing the value of a Rogue down to their ability to disarm traps? That's absurdly reductionist but here as some examples of times a Rogue would usually be good:

-Any campaign that allows the use of skills (so pretty much all campaigns)
-Any campaign where resource management matters (so any campaign that's not a 5 minute work day)
-Any campaign that would benefit from scouting

That's not even getting into the diverse abilties available to their subclasses, a Rogue is rarely ever a bad pick for a gameand is usually a pretty strong one unless they're completely mismanaged.

The more important part is finding the trap anyways. To that end you need good Investigation and Perception. Observant and Expertise help but even there, Enhance Ability pushes the Bard over the top. Finding the trap is the key part: after that you can figure out how to deal with it and what buffs to use. Remember that Enhance Ability lasts an hour too and magic traps can also be disabled via. Int: Arcana.

The Bard needs a heavy investment into Charisma (completely useless in this particular situation), a moderate investment in Dex and Con, so are we just ignoring how stretched a Bard would be to have positive modifiers in Int and Wis? Or that typically a Bard will want Expertise in things other than investigation or Arcana unless for some reason they're building themselves to be good at trap hunting?

You certainly can try an Arcana to disable magical traps, if the traps are magical and if using Arcana is actually betterfor the party.

[Merudo]

You can get it from a background, this isn't free, it's investing your background in it instead of a different tool or skill.

You can customize your background. So proficiency in Thieves' Tools only cost you a language or tool proficiency, and those tend to be more or less useless.

Nearly all my characters with 14+ Dex pick up Thieves' Tools proficiency.

A Rogue is a Dex primary/SAD class, it won't just benefit from Expertise, but also a higher Dex modifier (there's also multiple subclass features that enhance Thieves' Tools use).

Many other characters invest primarily in Dex, and have Dex at their secondary / tertiary stat.

As for subclass abilities that improve Thieves' Tools - Legerdemain is indeed neat to lockpick at range.

They can have Enhance Ability (an opportunity cost) and then they need to invest a 2nd level spell to use it, until later in tier 2 a 2nd level spell is a significant cost. Just because you could possible bridge a gap to a degree with a spell, doesn't make it as good as actually being good at that thing

I'd argue that the Rogue sacrifices far more than spell slots for his abilities to be decent at disarm traps: the Rogue has anemic damage, low defense, no control, and little utility.

Bards can't inspire themselves, so who are they inspiring?

Any character with halfway decent Dex and Thieves' Tool proficiencies.

I've seen and used locked doors and traps in every single campaign I've played in, ran or watched.

And I've never see a door or trap that couldn't be bypassed.

I've never seen Enhance Ability in actual play and seen it only in one streamed game.

Most of the Bards out there should probably learn the spell. And any Cleric or Druid worth its salt will prepare it on social occasions.

Rogues only look good if you've never been exposed to experienced spellcasters.

Though you at no point addressed Reliable Talent? What tricks are the casters pulling out to easily replicate that level of success?

I don't really consider level 11+ when evaluating classes. Very few play at levels that high.

here as some examples of times a Rogue would usually be good:

-Any campaign that allows the use of skills (so pretty much all campaigns)
-Any campaign that would benefit from scouting

Very few skills come up often in campaigns (basically, Athletics, Stealth, Perception, and Persuasion). Most character can cover 3 out of 4 of them.

Druid, Wizard and Warlock (Pact of Chains) are much better at scouting.

[AttilatheYeon]

Start Hill Dwarf

Level 1 barbarian.
Level 2 druid.
Level 3 druid (moon)
Level 4 barbarian.
Level 5 barbarian (bear or zealot)
Level 6 barbarian (dwarven fortitude)
.
.
.
Never die

[Dork_Forge]

You can customize your background. So proficiency in Thieves' Tools only cost you a language or tool proficiency, and those tend to be more or less useless.

Highly dependent on campaign, I've got a Druid in one of my games loving the ability to craft healing potions at half cost.

Nearly all my characters with 14+ Dex pick up Thieves' Tools proficiency.

And that's a useful thing to do, they will always be worse at it than a Dex primary class, Rogue or Artificer though (and that's okay...).

Many other characters invest primarily in Dex, and have Dex at their secondary / tertiary stat.

Yes and only one Dex based class can get expertise in them, again many characters can do decently or well with TT, that's not the kind of bar a specialist is aiming to beat.

As for subclass abilities that improve Thieves' Tools - Legerdemain is indeed neat to lockpick at range.

Or disarm traps at a safe distance, then there's the Thief that can do so as a bonus action too.

I'd argue that the Rogue sacrifices far more than spell slots for his abilities to be decent at disarm traps: the Rogue has anemic damage, low defense, no control, and little utility.

I'm stunned that this is your view, under what definition is a Rogue's damage anemic? How is Cunning Action, Uncanny Dodge and Evasion low defense? No control and little utility are also flat out wrong. What are you using as a benchmark here for any of this?

Any character with halfway decent Dex and Thieves' Tool proficiencies.

...And they'd be better off inspiring a Rogue, these aren't exclusive.

And I've never see a door or trap that couldn't be bypassed.

Just because you can bypass something doesn't mean that there isn't a cost to doing so.

Most of the Bards out there should probably learn the spell. And any Cleric or Druid worth its salt will prepare it on social occasions.

A spell known on something like that is pretty significant and locks and traps are more dungeon based than social typically. Though it's also worth noting that once you cast it you better hope you maintain concentration on it or that all the checks needed fall into that neat one hour window, you don't need to concentrate on something else in the mean time etc. Spells are a patch or a stop gap, they're rarely ever as good or approaching as good as a real ability.

Rogues only look good if you've never been exposed to experienced spellcasters.

Besides a Rogue being able to be a spellcaster, that's just caster elitist nonsense. I'm getting a very strong shrodingers Wizard vibe from your reply and I hope that I'm wrong.

I don't really consider level 11+ when evaluating classes. Very few play at levels that high.

When this came up Eladriel originally suggested Skill Empowerment, a 5th level spell. Though the lower level you look at, typically the worse the caster looks as slots and available spells drop.

Very few skills come up often in campaigns (basically, Athletics, Stealth, Perception, and Persuasion). Most character can cover 3 out of 4 of them.

That's it? You don't think it's common for players to lie to NPCs,try to assertain their intentions? Dex based players to use Acrobatics to escape grapples? No tracking? To borrow a word, that list seems rather anemic.

Druid, Wizard and Warlock (Pact of Chains) are much better at scouting.

This is where again we will greatly diverge in opinion, getting an Owl familiar is not the be all, end all of scouting. Especially if there's fearsome obstacles in the way, like a closed door.

Druid isn't bad at scouting, a Chain familiar with investments is also good.

[Samayu]

Cleric. Play a healer and everyone will want to keep you alive. Plus, you'll be able to keep them alive, and you want them to stay alive, to increase your own chances of survival.

[Toadkiller]

Don’t leave town. Specifically, stay in a friendly temple or someplace with lots of healing. “That sounds scary, I will wait here.”

[Gtdead]

There are layers to survivability. Anyone can claim "have alert, high initiative, expeditious retreat to get the **** out, use dodge action" etc. But then the question remains: If everyone does this, then who is going to deal the damage?

If you ask me, the best case scenario at lvl 1, is wizard winning initiative and taking out half the enemies with sleep. This already sets the party for success. For this to happen, you actually need casters with super high initiative and access to the spell. So that's that.

The next best thing is for the party to kill the enemy passively through attacks of opportunity and persistent effects. This is the domain of feats like PAM/Sentinel/Warcaster booming blade (reaction optimization in general), cover and smart positioning. If your meatshields can't have reliable AoOs, then they have a problem early that needs to be fixed with resource expenditure. Later it doesn't matter that much but thankfully these feats do more than just helping with AoOs. It's also the domain of obscurement effects taking archers out of the equation (although these will most likely come into play later).

Then it's the actual numerical advantage (this becomes progressively more important as you level, but for T1 things are fairly simple. You don't have to deal with teleportation, control spells etc). High AC is useful for frontliners, but not for the wizard that can stay out of range or behind cover. Trying to optimize the weak points usually has high opportunity costs (in this case it's one sleep less per day, or a dip for heavy armor proficiency that messes with your spell progression). There are situations where these things are useful, but they aren't optimal. It depends on the party makeup and what roles have to be filled, but when talking about survivability, I don't want my wizard to frontline, even if he has 40 AC. I want my frontliner to have high AC, highly optimized action economy and be a great platform for offensive buffing or have enough output to not need buffing at all. Wizard can be some of these things, but not all of these things unless he spends a huge amount of resources to do it (possible at higher levels, not the case at Tier 1).

Party being able to perform at range is also very important. If you control the engagement there are much you can do to gain an advantage.

If you build around these ideas you don't have much to worry about. Eventually you get access to persistent effects that change the action economy of dealing damage. Things like flaming sphere, spiritual weapon, spirit guardians. Complement these with high numerical defenses and optimized attacks of opportunity, and the enemies will just die by themselves.

On the other hand, a party is as strong as the weakest member. If 3 out of 4 are survivable, but the last player can't take the heat, then the party wastes resources/actions to save the weak member and creates openings for the enemy to exploit. There are ways to mitigate this with things like Healing Word, Familiar giving goodberries/potions etc, but it's very inefficient. You want your bonus action to be used on spiritual weapon and your familiar to use dragon's breath or help action (or even stay safely away from the fight). Not reviving fallen team mates that could avoid this fate all together by making smarter choices. These things are good in a clutch scenario where the **** hits the fan for some reason, but if you use them too often then something is very wrong with the party.