Is spell dmg worth at high levels?

[Selion]

I like 5e, maybe I like it more than any other d20 system I played (with pathfinder 1e as a close second), but i think something is off in characters' DPR progression in respect to their HP, and wizards are not exceptions

Let's take as an example the iconic fireball. It comes in line at 5th level with 8 dice of dmg, when you upcast it at higher level you increase by 1 die per spell-level, so 1 die every 2 character levels, while the hp progression increases by 1 die per character level.
Clearly fireball is not the best spell to upcast, but higher level spells dmg is somewhat close to that of a fireball upcast to that level, with a few notable exceptions, like disintegrate and animate objects (which is not direct dmg btw)
Things change dramatically only with 9th level spells: prismatic wall, blade of disaster and meteor swarm

You can still increase your dps combining different effects, like using bigby hand or combining blasts with summoning, but still, is there any reason to stick with damage dealing spells in tier 3 adventures?

[LudicSavant]

You can still increase your dps combining different effects, like using bigby hand or combining blasts with summoning, but still, is there any reason to stick with damage dealing spells in tier 3 adventures?

A recent and relevant thread:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...make-a-mailman

Anyways, AoE damage spells are amazing... when you're hitting multiple targets. If you want a spellcaster to be good at single target damage, then you're going to want things like synergistic Magic Missile or Scorching Ray combos, or DoTs, or summons, or various other concentration effects (like Bigby's or Melf's), or retributive effects (like AoA or Hellish Rebuke), or Crown of Stars, or gish buff combos, or action economy boosters, or some combination thereof. Helps to have certain subclasses, too.

There's a lot of potential there, it's just not quite as obvious as just casting Fireball.

[Man_Over_Game]

It's worth noting that a Fireball without upcasting deals an average of 21 damage per target when assuming a 50% hit chance.

Compare that to a Barbarian with a 2d6 weapon, 2 attacks, +5 mod, +3 Rage bonus, no feats, he's dealing 15 damage on a single target when assuming a 50% hit chance.

Fireball hits an 8x8 square on your map.

I think you'll be fine.

[Hael]

A recent and relevant thread:
https://forums.giantitp.com/showthre...make-a-mailman

The 3 tiny servant ba magic stone spam starts adding up when you combine it with spells like animate object. Classes like the chronurgist can have summon demon up simultaneously as well (some of which have darkness spell).. since tiny servant and the animate objects all have blindsight, the dpr starts really ramping up over long fights.

[Witty Username]

Depends on the high levels. Meteor swarm, hard yes. I do think there is a bit of a gap to bridge, about 6-8th level where it gets fuzzy but there is still good to be had.
Fireball, good. Freezing sphere, good. Scnaptic static, also good. Depends a bit on what you mean by high level I guess.

[MrStabby]

I like 5e, maybe I like it more than any other d20 system I played (with pathfinder 1e as a close second), but i think something is off in characters' DPR progression in respect to their HP, and wizards are not exceptions

Let's take as an example the iconic fireball. It comes in line at 5th level with 8 dice of dmg, when you upcast it at higher level you increase by 1 die per spell-level, so 1 die every 2 character levels, while the hp progression increases by 1 die per character level.
Clearly fireball is not the best spell to upcast, but higher level spells dmg is somewhat close to that of a fireball upcast to that level, with a few notable exceptions, like disintegrate and animate objects (which is not direct dmg btw)
Things change dramatically only with 9th level spells: prismatic wall, blade of disaster and meteor swarm

You can still increase your dps combining different effects, like using bigby hand or combining blasts with summoning, but still, is there any reason to stick with damage dealing spells in tier 3 adventures?

So at 5th level when fireball comes on line, how many ogres will there be in an ogre encounter and how many will fit inside the fireball radius? At 14th level how many ogres will there be in an ogre encounter and how many will fit into its radius?

Encounters scale by HP increase but it isn't just each creature has more HP; your XP budget for a fight can also include more bodies. As you get more bodies you are more likely to get more enemies you can catch inside an area of effect spell. So options like scorching ray that are single target do drop off a bit (a lot) but spells like fireball don't in the same way. They get more situational - they are the answer to a lower proportion of fights each day for sure, and they way you use them changes: you still probably want them as 3rd level spells when you are unwilling to commithigher level resources rather than you primarily being a damage dealer as a character... but I think that fireball stays good a lot longer than it is sometimes given credit for.

[MaxWilson]

So at 5th level when fireball comes on line, how many ogres will there be in an ogre encounter and how many will fit inside the fireball radius? At 14th level how many ogres will there be in an ogre encounter and how many will fit into its radius?

Encounters scale by HP increase but it isn't just each creature has more HP; your XP budget for a fight can also include more bodies. As you get more bodies you are more likely to get more enemies you can catch inside an area of effect spell. So options like scorching ray that are single target do drop off a bit (a lot) but spells like fireball don't in the same way. They get more situational - they are the answer to a lower proportion of fights each day for sure, and they way you use them changes: you still probably want them as 3rd level spells when you are unwilling to commithigher level resources rather than you primarily being a damage dealer as a character... but I think that fireball stays good a lot longer than it is sometimes given credit for.

Agreed. I see people scoffing at Elemonk's 2 Fireballs power short rest at level 11 (and three at 12) by noting that the wizard has been doing that since level 5. I mean, yes, that's true, and one Fireball from a level 5 wizard will inflict 140ish damage on a dozen CR 1/2 orcs... but it won't do much at all to a dozen CR 4 Ettins. Nor will an upcast Fireball VII. At higher levels, more Fireballs are needed.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Another consideration: most of the non damage spell things you can do are concentration. So unless you gosh, you're going to have a fair amount of time spent with a concentration spell up and not all that much you can do that isn't some form of damage.

Casters do area blasting and control better than martials. In return, their default single target damage (unless specially built for) isn't as impressive. 5e is built around preferring more, weaker monsters to fewer, bigger ones.

[MaxWilson]

Another consideration: most of the non damage spell things you can do are concentration. So unless you gosh, you're going to have a fair amount of time spent with a concentration spell up and not all that much you can do that isn't some form of damage.

Casters do area blasting and control better than martials. In return, their default single target damage (unless specially built for) isn't as impressive. 5e is built around preferring more, weaker monsters to fewer, bigger ones.

I like to throw nets as a Skulker Goblin Hexvoker. Due to how the rules are written, being unseen is one of the few ways to avoid disadvantage with nets (you have disadvantage on ranged attacks if a hostile non-incapacitated creature THAT CAN SEE YOU is within 5', but being hidden is being unseen and unheard) and can even theoretically let you gain advantage on them. It's not necessarily better than cantrips, but sometimes it's more party-friendly because you're granting others advantage AND denying the enemy actions, and it's nice to have the option.

Another non-concentration thing you can do is control Unseen Servants, Tiny Servants, and animated undead. Have them drop caltrops, Shove enemies prone, grapple, attack, Dodge and threaten opportunity attacks, and / or just get in the way of Large monsters (occupy chokepoints, prevent them from getting within 5' of PCs you want to protect).

I heartily second the recommendation to use large numbers of "weaker" monsters frequently.

[Kane0]

Area blasts are generally pretty good, single target blasts tends to fall off sharply as you gain spell levels unless you’re specifically looking to improve them.

[SharkForce]

I mean, if you're talking about single-target damage, I'm not sure spell damage is worth it at lower levels either, as a rule. I mean, there are exceptions (warlocks for example, and certain magic missile builds that combine a lot of stuff to make it worthwhile). for the most part, spellcasters aren't really great at single-target damage, and I suspect that is largely by design.

[LudicSavant]

Good single target damage for casters tends to come from buffs (like Hex, Holy Weapon, etc), minionmancy (like familiars or Summon Celestial, Animate Objects, Animate Dead, etc), action economy efficiency (like Crown of Stars, Spiritual Weapon, Concentration spells, Simulacrum, etc), combos with things that can hit multiple times (like Create Bonfire, Magic Missile, Scorching Ray, Cloud of Daggers, Sickening Radiance, Wall of Ice, Spirit Guardians, etc), and/or features that enhance spell damage (like Empowered Evocation, Agonizing Blast, Empowered Spell, Quicken Spell, Hexblade's Curse, Potent Cantrip, Arcane Abeyance, etc).

What really makes caster damage dangerous is that you can combine a bunch of these at the same time. This is also what makes people underestimate it on paper, since people are often stuck in the mindset of guides that color-code individual spells or features in a vacuum, without focusing on how those tools can combine. They don't put all the moving parts together at the same time. All those little bits add up, your Familiar using Help and all that other stuff.

Like, you usually don't want to actually just straight-cast Disintegrate at someone unless you're getting something else to go with it (e.g. you're bypassing a death gate, or they're stunned and auto-fail, or something). Usually the #1 reason I prep Disintegrate is "break glass in case of force walls."

[Sigreid]

Pretty much caster trying to take a main level opponent down with spells is going to burn up all his potential for the day really quickly. It's not a good use of their spells. What is a good use of their spells is wiping out groups of lesser mobs and control and utility. Let the martials deal the direct damage to the big opponents. Just make sure they don't have to worry about the lesser ones.

[LudicSavant]

Pretty much caster trying to take a main level opponent down with spells is going to burn up all his potential for the day really quickly. It's not a good use of their spells.

Not if you're picking the right stuff. Summon Celestial lasts a whole hour and is very good damage output (like, comparable to some entire martial PCs). Crown of Stars is also very good, and is worth about as much as 14 SP worth of quickens (or more at tier 3) -- not bad at all for one slot. Create Bonfire and Eldritch Blast are just cantrips. And so forth.

You can absolutely play a high single target damage caster in games that have 6+ Deadly encounters a day. I've done it plenty of times.

Let the martials deal the direct damage to the big opponents.

Why? Their resources don't last for more encounters than yours do, Action Surges and Rages and such get used up.

[Sigreid]

Not if you're picking the right stuff. Summon Celestial lasts a whole hour and is very good damage output (like, comparable to some entire martial PCs). Crown of Stars is also very good, and is worth about as much as 14 SP worth of quickens (or more at tier 3) -- not bad at all for one slot. Create Bonfire and Eldritch Blast are just cantrips. And so forth.

You can absolutely play a high single target damage caster in games that have 8+ encounters a day. I've done it plenty of times.

I was, of course referring to the higher level spells as that seemed to be the crux of the question. Yes, they can do nice damage, but IMO the opportunity cost is pretty high to do the damage necessary to take down a high CR opponent with direct damage.

[LudicSavant]

I was, of course referring to the higher level spells as that seemed to be the crux of the question. Yes, they can do nice damage, but IMO the opportunity cost is pretty high to do the damage necessary to take down a high CR opponent with direct damage.

And yet you don't think this for martial characters? Seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

[Sigreid]

And yet you don't think this for martial characters? Seems like a bit of a double standard to me.

Martials tend to not have to spend daily resources to do significant damage. I my game experience (one table, 5 people) it almost seems that the game design is for the martial to focus on removing hp from high CR opponents and casters to give them the breathing room to do it through clearing the ground of other opponents, controlling the field and buffing them up.

But that's just my observation based on one table.

[LudicSavant]

Martials tend to not have to spend daily resources to do significant damage.

Which is irrelevant if you can still outpace their damage over the course of a long adventuring day.

Also, casters can often do good damage without spending any slots, too. Bladesingers, for example. But of course at high levels they have enough resources that they can be spending stuff every single encounter even if you're playing a large number of encounters a day.

[Sigreid]

Which is irrelevant if you can still outpace their damage over the course of a long adventuring day.

I disagree. It's great for classes to have different areas of expertise as it were. Yes, Jo Fighter may not do as much HP damage over the day when the wizard or sorcerer can wipe out half the kobold tribe with a single fireball. But that same fireball barely rates an ouch when used against the big bad boss.

[LudicSavant]

I disagree. It's great for classes to have different areas of expertise as it were. Yes, Jo Fighter may not do as much HP damage over the day when the wizard or sorcerer can wipe out half the kobold tribe with a single fireball. But that same fireball barely rates an ouch when used against the big bad boss.

I'm not talking about Fireball, Sigreid. I'm talking about single target damage. I am talking about the big bad boss.

[Sigreid]

I'm not talking about Fireball, Sigreid. I'm talking about single target damage. I am talking about the big bad boss.

I'm aware. We just differ on how worth the slot it is to do that to the big boss as opposed to something else.

[LudicSavant]

I'm aware. We just differ on how worth the slot it is to do that to the big boss as opposed to something else.

Then why are you bringing up Fireball? We're just back to what I said in post #19.

If X output over Y encounters is good enough for a martial character to fill a party role, it's good enough for anyone else to fill that role, too.

[MaxWilson]

I'm not talking about Fireball, Sigreid. I'm talking about single target damage. I am talking about the big bad boss.

Maybe a specific scenario would help. Combat Challenge time!

12th level party, 4 PCs, any builds allowed by your actual play group. (E.g. no Lore Wizards unless your DM permits them in actual play. My way of cutting down on probably-OP content.)

Don't look at the spoiler until after you post a party.

The adventure is a multidimensional labyrinth, and it just so happens that today

Spoiler: Don't Look Until You Post Your Party

Show

they stumble across the following monsters in order, with short rests in between.

1) Beholder at the bottom of a trap chute. 1-4 PCs (your choice based on how many you think would jump down to help the first guy) are trapped inside a kidney-shaped demiplane 40' in length and 20' wide and high. A beholder is here too, floating 10' up, and because this is a combat challenge all it will do is fight. When the beholder is dead the demiplane collapses and puts you back at the top of the chute.

2) A Nycaloth and a Glabrezu, also in a demiplane of the same size (for simplicity of the challenge).

3) Adult White Dragon, same.

4) Abominable Yeti and two Chasmes.

5) A Death Knight.

6) A Giant Ape with human-level tactical intelligence (knows about focusing casters, etc.) and a dozen Skulks.

7) Four Neogi Masters leveraging Hold Person and Charm plus Eldritch Blast, and two Star Spawn Manglers focus firing on paralyzed targets.

8) A Mind Flayer Arcanist and a creature indistinguishable from a Githyanki Supreme Commander (yes, allied!).

Then they find the exit and escape the labyrinth with the Tablets of the Gods which they stole last season and which they need to banish the influence of Ghroth the Harbinger, save life as we know it, and reach 13th level.

After seven short rests and eight encounters over a period of about ten hours, is your party still alive?

[LudicSavant]

Maybe a specific scenario would help. Combat Challenge time!

12th level party, 4 PCs, any PHB/Xanathar's/Volo's builds allowed.

Don't look at the spoiler until after you post a party.

The adventure is a multidimensional labyrinth, and it just so happens that today

Spoiler: Don't Look Until You Post Your Party

Show

they stumble across the following monsters in order, with short rests in between.

1) Beholder at the bottom of a trap chute. 1-4 PCs (your choice based on how many you think would jump down to help the first guy) are trapped inside a kidney-shaped demiplane 40' in length and 20' wide and high. A beholder is here too, floating 10' up, and because this is a combat challenge all it will do is fight. When the beholder is dead the demiplane collapses and puts you back at the top of the chute.

2) A Nycaloth and a Glabrezu, also in a demiplane of the same size (for simplicity of the challenge).

3) Adult White Dragon, same.

4) Abominable Yeti and two Chasmes.

5) A Death Knight.

6) A Giant Ape with human-level tactical intelligence (knows about focusing casters, etc.) and a dozen Skulks.

7) Four Neogi Masters leveraging Hold Person and Charm plus Eldritch Blast, and two Star Spawn Manglers focus firing on paralyzed targets.

8) A Mind Flayer Arcanist and a creature indistinguishable from a Githyanki Supreme Commander (yes, allied!).

After seven short rests and eight encounters, is your party still alive?

I'd be unlikely to have time to get into some extended play by post thing, even if I wasn't scheduled to play D&D today.

That said, the unusual volume and density of forced short rests (7 hours worth! Nearly quadruple what the DMG says is average for a 6-8 encounter day!) is gonna make this a super skewed case. Like, a Barbarian is going to run out of Rages and is going to be reduced to no better than Bladesinger or Eldritch Blast cantrips/invocations for nearly half the day. Meanwhile a Warlock is going to have a staggering 21 fifth level spells that day, allowing them 2-3 slots per encounter, plus a Mystic Arcanum in one. Why choose such a skewed number of short rests? Like, it's kinda weird to get an hour break between every labyrinth room.

We're also not gonna get to talk about an awful lot of high level spells (the topic of the thread) since you set it at 12 for some reason, so we don't get to talk about 7th and 8th spells, which are very pertinent to what the OP was asking about.

[MaxWilson]

I'd be unlikely to have time to get into some extended play by post thing, even if I wasn't scheduled to play D&D today.

That said, the unusual volume and density of forced short rests (7 hours worth! Nearly quadruple what the DMG says is average for a 6-8 encounter day!) is gonna make this a super skewed case. Like, a Barbarian is going to run out of Rages and is going to be reduced to no better than Bladesinger or Eldritch Blast cantrips/invocations for nearly half the day. Meanwhile a Warlock is going to have a staggering 21 fifth level spells that day, allowing them 2-3 slots per encounter, plus a Mystic Arcanum in one. Why choose such a skewed number of short rests? Like, it's kinda weird to get an hour break between every labyrinth room.

We're also not gonna get to talk about an awful lot of high level spells (the topic of the thread) since you set it at 12 for some reason, so we don't get to talk about 7th and 8th spells, which are very pertinent to what the OP was asking about.

I'm not asking for play by post. Just report results in whatever form you want. Or propose your own so that we can see what your idea is of a scenario where casters excel at single target damage compared to warriors. This isn't a competition, it's a discussion group.

My idea of labyrinths is that it ISN'T weird to get a one hour break if you want one but it is weird to get a 24 hour break. E.g. in Labyrinth, the movie, Sarah has hours but not days to beat the labyrinth. It would be weird to treat the whole labyrinth as a speed run and not rest after a tough fight if you need it, but going to bed in the midafternoon and giving up for today is also weird, so assuming a ten hour timespan (plenty of time for seven short rests) is what I picked for this challenge. Attempt this one (feel free to skip rests if you want) or propose your own.

I picked 12 partly because most people cease play around there, and partly because I didn't want to argue with anybody about how broken RAW Simulacrum is. Any argument which boils down to "casters are better at single target damage because even if martials were better, casters can just make a Simulacrum of a martial" isn't something I want to deal with right now.

[LudicSavant]

I'm not asking for play by post. Just report results in whatever form you want.

Okay, fair enough. That's slightly more doable, time-wise.

My idea of labyrinths is that it ISN'T weird to get a one hour break if you want one but it is weird to get a 24 hour break. E.g. in Labyrinth, the movie, Sarah has hours but not days to beat the labyrinth. It would be weird to treat the whole labyrinth as a speed run and not rest after a tough fight if you need it, but going to bed in the midafternoon and giving up for today is also weird, so assuming a ten hour timespan (plenty of time for seven short rests) is what I picked for this challenge. Attempt this one (feel free to skip rests if you want) or propose your own.

I haven't seen the movie, so I'll take your word for it.

So for your scenario, we're talking about at most a couple hours of actual dungeoneering, with room for a ton of short rests.

The density of short rest opportunities in this campaign makes me tempted to bring an all Warlock party.

All DPR figures are vs AC 17 (since that's the DMG-stated average for CR12). All results account for crit chance, accuracy, etc etc, and all decimal results are rounded to the nearest tenth.

For perspective, the resourceless damage of a GWM/PAM Battle Master (against the same AC) is just ~32.7. Their AC is 19 (18 if they don't take Defense), and their hp is 100 (with Con 14) or 112 (with Con 16).

So let's introduce our first party member.

Yamara d'Jorasco

Mark of Healing Halfling Celestial Pact of the Chain Warlock 11 / Life Cleric 1.

Them Heals
Let's take a look at just how powerful our healing is as a result of Jorasco + Life dip + Celestial. For perspective on the sheer quantity of hp value we're talking about here, a level 12, 14 Con Barbarian has 113 hit points at this level.

Celestial Resilience alone will generate 16 temp hp for you, plus 10 temp hp per character (for 5 characters other than you, meaning 3 party members + familiars), per short rest (for a grand total of up to (8*16)+(8*10*5) = 528 temp hp generated in MaxWilson's scenario).

Our Healing Light feature gives us 12 d6s we can hand out as we please using bonus actions, for a grand total of 42 hp value.

A slot spent on Aura of Vitality is worth ((2d6+7)*10)= 140 hp of non-combat healing per slot.

A slot spent on Cure Wounds is worth 5d8+12 = 34.5 hp of burst healing. Notably, you can combine this with your Healing Light on the same turn to burst for 52.5 hp healing, nearly the burst of a level 6 Heal spell.

A slot spent on Mass Healing Word is worth 3d4+12 = 19.5 hp of healing per party member (for a total of 78 hp value), as a mere bonus action. Notably, you can do this on the same turn that you, say, Eldritch Blast something.

In short, you have so much damn healing that the party can be expected to enter every single combat with full hit points, and Team Monster would have to do seriously fast burst in order to actually take anyone down.

And then, after all this, we take Gift of the Ever-Living Ones.

___

Teh Damagez
Now, let's take a look at our damage. All DPR figures are vs AC 17 (since that's the DMG-stated average for CR12). All results account for crit chance, accuracy, etc etc, and all decimal results are rounded to the nearest tenth. For perspective, the resourceless damage of a GWM/PAM Battle Master (against the same AC) is just ~32.7.

I even accounted for the effects of the Halfling "Lucky" feature in my math.

If we are concentrating on Spirit Shroud, our Eldritch Blast does 2d8+1d10+5 damage per ray (and an extra +5 damage on the first ray, from the 'Radiant Soul' feature, since Spirit Shroud does Radiant damage). This is worth ~47 DPR, ~52.1 DPR if our Familiar helps us, or ~62 DPR if we're standing inside of a Darkness.

Spirit Shroud is only a bonus action to activate, and has the duration to lasts for an entire encounter. Even if we only had 2 short rests instead of Max's 7, we would be able to do this for every encounter for 9 encounters, outdamaging standard GWM/PAM Fighters throughout, and still bringing the value of Celestial Resilience, Invocations, Healing Light, and a 6th level spell to the party.

What else do we have for damage options? Let's see. There's "Summon Fiend" for a Mystic Arcanum, which has 3 attacks for 2d6+9 each, and it has Devil's Sight so it can benefit from this party of Warlocks spamming Darkness. This means it has 32.3 DPR vs AC 17, or 44.7 DPR in Darkness. Notably, this is in addition to your regular Eldritch Blast DPR, which (without Spirit Shroud) is 22.4 DPR / 30 DPR with Advantage. For a grand total of 54.7 DPR / 74.7 DPR for an hour. Plus your Familiar can still Help someone for a bit more DPR!

There's also alternative damage options for our level 5 slot. If we're up against a group, Synaptic Static is really good, dealing damage like a Fireball, except with a much better damage type (Psychic), a much better saving throw (Intelligence), and carrying a strong non-Concentration debuff with it.

That debuff grants -1d6 to attack rolls, which is a strong defensive benefit to the party in general (it's like having ~70% of the value of the Shield spell for the whole party). It also grants -1d6 to ability checks, which can combo with a teammate's Hex to just completely hose someone's ability checks and leave them hyper-vulnerable to spells that use ability checks instead of saves, or just plain grappling or the like.

Another great aspect of it reduces ability checks is that it helps screw over Counterspell and Dispel Magic.

There's Wall of Fire, which deals 6d8+5 (32)/save for half AoE damage when it appears, then another 6d8 (27) true DPR with no save each time they end their turn on the wrong side, or try to pass through it. And it's really, really easy to get multiple procs on Wall of Fire on multiple creatures with Repelling Blast.

There's Armor of Agathys, which allows us to deal 25 true DPR (e.g. it can't miss) per melee hit that strikes us, until it breaks.

There's Cloud of Daggers, which deals 25 true DPR (e.g. it too cannot miss) per tick, and it's really easy to activate it multiple times by pinballing people around with Repelling Blast from multiple Warlocks. Like it's very feasible for this to put out 100 damage in a round to a creature. And it can affect multiple creatures.



There's Darkness, which basically gives you Advantage on all your (and your allies') Eldritch Blasting for 10 entire minutes (which means damage), plus gives many enemies Disadvantage to hit you, plus disables any enemy abilities that require them to see the target.

There's Hellish Rebuke, which deals a very respectable 6d10+5 (38)/save for half burst damage without even using your Action or Bonus Action, so that's stacking right on top of your Spirit Shroud + Eldritch Blast or whatever. And half of that damage is unmissable.

There's Summon Undead, Summon Fey, Summon Greater Demon, Summon Aberration, Summon Shadowspawn, and Summon Lesser Demons, all of which deal respectable damage over generous durations. I can't be bothered to go over every single one of those here, just think of it as a one-step-lower version of what I said about Summon Fiend. Summon Undead is really good at applying fear, Summon Shadowspawn is really good for denying movement, summon aberration can give a minion with regeneration, summon fey can create darkness squares for allies to abuse, give advantage, or wield shortswords. All of them offer different damage types for bypassing resistances, and Aberration/Undead can do ranged attacks.

And there's Thunder Step which does 5d10 (27.5) / save for half AoE damage in a 25-foot diameter, which is close to the damage of a Synaptic Static or Fireball but in a smaller area. The upshot is that you do this while simultaneously moving yourself and an ally up to 90 feet!

There's Guardian of Faith, which is basically a non-Concentration hazard that dishes out up to 60 damage.

There's Sickening Radiance, which covers a huge 60 foot diameter AoE and builds up exhaustion stacks as you bounce people in and out of it (on top of 4d10 damage on each failed Con save).

All of these are Nice Things. So grab up a few of these.

Cleric Spells
You get 2 extra spell slots as a result of your Cleric dip. You can use them for a boosted 1d4+8 (10.5) hp Healing Word, Bless, Command, Sanctuary, or Protection from Evil and Good (e.g. 1st level spells that retain their relevance at all levels).

Invocations!
We get 5 of these. We'll take Devil's Sight, Agonizing Blast, Repelling Blast, Eldritch Mind, and Gift of the Ever-Living Ones (which will take our healing from "really good" to "why yes, I can in fact restore my entire health bar in a turn, you squishy Barbarian").

ASIs
Tasha's race variant. Fey-Touched (+1 Cha) and +2 Cha. Take "Gift of Alacrity" as our Fey-Touched spell.

___


The Labyrinth
Now, I was going to take the time to make 4 of these Warlocks each taking complementary abilities making them more than the sum of their parts, but I realize I'm already running out of time to write stuff today, and Yamara is versatile enough (despite Celestial Resilience not stacking) that I bet 4 of him would do alright anyways (even though he's the healer of the party, and other folks like the party Hexblade can do waaaaay more damage, Yamara already can outdamage many martials). I call the Celestial Warlock a generalist for a reason, after all.

Team Yamara's "default" tactic will be for one of them to have Darkness up at any given time, while the other Yamaras open a fight with Spirit Shroud and Eldritch Blast @#$% into oblivion. Possibly with one or more of them dropping a hazard for the others to pinball people through. Alternatively they could use a summon instead of a Spirit Shroud. They drop fat heals (seriously, they can burst heal each other from 0-100 in a turn) as needed, or simply heal to full after each fight.

In fights 5, 6, 7, and 8, one of the Yamaras will have a fiend summoned via Mystic Arcanum. Each Yamara will be given Gift of Alacrity from Fey-Touched.

They will also hand the fiend a healing potion, just in case it wants to pick someone up off the death gate. They'll do the same for their Chain Pact familiars. Yamaras can produce healing potions themselves using their high (Jorasco-boosted) Herbalism skill, or just spend some of that massive wad of cash they saved by wearing medium rather than heavy armor (specifically, 4 half-plates instead of 4 full plates means 3000 gold to toss around). These can actually heal a full 10 hit points per potion, thanks to Gift of the Ever-Living Ones. Using your familiar's action, not yours. And there are 4 of those familiars, so... yeah.

I will solve problems using damage spells. Even my control spells will be damage spells (e.g. Synaptic Static, Repelling Eldritch Blast, Wall of Fire, etc).

Sound good? Good! I'm gonna take a peek at what's hidden in that spoiler block now, and see if Yamara holds up. Maybe I'll be surprised?

1) Okay... first fight is a Beholder in a tight space? Well the Beholder has a big problem, namely that it can't target people it can't see with eye rays, and while it can suppress Darkness with its antimagic cone, it can't fire eye rays at people while said cone is active. And its bite attack is peanuts. I suspect this is a stomp for Team Yamara with barely any resource expenditures.

2) Nycaloth and Glabrezu can both see through the Darkness, both have Dispel Magic, and the Glabrezu can cast Power Word Stun. They can certainly put up more of a fight than the Beholder can. However, their many resistances, including Magic Resistance, are all useless as a defense against Eldritch Blast + Spirit Shroud. And if they're using Dispel Magic on Spirit Shroud, they're not attacking and dealing damage, and they're only affecting 1 party member at a time (if they succeed on a casting check), and they're only reducing their damage rather than eliminating it, and they can just re-cast it as a bonus action anyways.

The fact that we're in a small demiplane is advantageous to the pair, since it makes it easier for them to actually get in range and attack the teleport-capable Repelling Blasters, but they don't really have the defenses to last for more than a coupla rounds, nor the offense to really threaten people as tanky as Yamara. Especially the Nycaloth (whose wounding ability is basically hard countered by Celestial Warlocks for barely any resources). The Glabrezu's grapples basically don't matter because of Repelling Blasts coming in from all sides. Team Yamara focuses down the Glabrezu first just because it seems like it does more damage (both with its attacks and spells), and because the Nycaloth presumably would be starting with Mirror Image and Invisibility.

3) This is Yamara's biggest threat so far -- the dragon can do meaningful damage while debuffing attack rolls with Frightful Presence. Thankfully, Team Yamara is proficient in Wisdom saves, has Advantage against fear, halfling luck, and can do plenty of damage even if most of their attacks miss (or even if they don't use attack rolls at all), so the fear's not a big deal.

Yamara also notices that it can't burrow because of the limits of the demiplane, as surely as it prevents Team Yamara from kiting with a staggering 120 feet worth of knockback. So he takes advantage of this with Wall of Fire, so that the creature has to approach them if it wants to use its melee options, and proceeds to pinball the dragon through hazards with Repelling Blast until it dies from massive damage. Remember that Wall of Fire does not offer saving throws for Legendary Resistance, beyond its initial appearance. So that's just 6d8 each time it enters the wall, and 6d8 each time it ends its turn in a position to actually hit the PCs. That's gonna add up awfully quick.

The damage from the breath weapons and melee attacks gets healed up as necessary, likely mostly with bonus actions or post-battle healing.

4) Accounting for their (low) Int saving throws, Synaptic Statics deal over 75 average damage each (between the 3 of them), plus totally screwing the attack rolls of these melee-reliant foes. Wall of Fire is also effective here, dealing 6d8 per tick (with those ticks racking up real quick thanks to them A) the narrow quarters of the demiplane, B) the monsters relying on melee range for their attacks and C) Repelling Blast). The Yeti even has a Fear of Fire disadvantage. The Chasmes are resistant to fire, but with no saving throw and multiple ticks, it's still a real threat to their low hit points. Basically, these monsters are gonna get wrecked.

The Abominable Yeti has a breath weapon, but it's likely to only get to use it once during the fight (because it only recharges on a 6).

Chasmes have a 37% chance to knock someone unconscious with their droning, but you can just have your familiars wake you up, or even have an ally poke you with one of the rays of their Eldritch Blasts (and still direct the rest of the rays at the enemy). After which you're immune to the Chasme's droning for 24 hours.

Chasmes also have the potential to reduce maximum hit points, but Yamara can undo this with Greater Restoration after the fight if it happens. Which it might not (because of Wall of Fire and Synaptic Static and Yamara's solid AC and Con save).

5) Ah, the Death Knight, an otherwise fearsome CR17 creature that's helpless against Forcecage. Thankfully for the Death Knight, Yamara doesn't have that spell quite yet, so Death Knight gets to actually play the game.

Mr. Death Knight does not have the ability to see through Darkness, so he's going to make all of his attacks at Disadvantage, while the Yamaras get to make their attacks at Advantage. It also means he can't use any of the "creature he can see" spells. This means Mr. Death Knight is probably going to rely on his AoE attacks, like Hellfire Orb or Destructive Wave.

Yes, he could use Dispel Magic on Darkness, but that's just exchanging his entire turn for a chance to remove 1/4th of the party's Actions (which they spend to simply re-cast it). Not a good deal for Mr. Death Knight. In fact he's better off tossing a Hellfire Orb and hoping someone loses Concentration.

Yamara can counteract the effects of these AoEs through his own AoE healing, or via Counterspells.

Team Yamara is also going to burn the Death Knight's hit points pretty fast since Darkness is working at full strength here. The Yamaras with Spirit Shroud are going to be burning through his 20 AC at a rate of 54.6 DPR each (and the one with Summon Fiend does considerably more). And Yamaras have an initiative roll advantage thanks to Gift of Alacrity, of course. These two things together means he might not even see more than 1 turn. Parry hardly even helps because it only blocks 1 ray.

Magic Resistance, as usual, continues to be an ineffective deterrent against magic and does not affect the fight at all.

Overall this is one of the more taxing encounters to Team Yams resources thus far, simply because Mr. Death Knight's AoEs are big and fat and do enough damage to actually break Concentration and cause re-casting, but it's nowhere close to making them actually run out.

6) One well-placed Synaptic Static can basically reduce this encounter to mush.

The Skulks are basically going to evaporate as soon as Synaptic Static hits. Even if they somehow don't, they are melee-attack based with a low attack bonus against characters with good AC, so... yeah.

The giant ape has no ability to deal with Darkness, so it's going to be plugging away at a paltry ~13.7 DPR. Once the first Synaptic Static falls (since this is an enemy group with low Int, so it's AoE-o-clock), it's going to see that plummet to a pathetic 6.7 DPR.

There's also gonna be a summoned fiend in the mix here, making Team Yams damage even higher.

The best chance Team Monster has is probably taking spread out positions surrounding the party to make it harder for them to AoE, but this is unlikely to work given Yamara's high initiative and mobility options. Even if they do avoid getting AoEed, they still have the problem that they can't do good damage

7) Interesting one!

Neogi Masters are surprisingly threatening for their CR. Their vision pierces Magical Darkness, and they have Counterspell (though their Counterspell has only a 50% chance of making the casting check to eat a Warlock slot), and they have mind control shenanigans. Not to mention that those Manglers do serious burst damage if they get their hands on a paralyzed PC.

Thankfully, our Lucky Halflings have a high (67%, or ~76% with Bless) chance of resisting their influence, but that's definitely not 100%.

The good news is that they don't have a lot of hit points or defenses, nor are they good at keeping their Concentration in the face of the high damage of Team Yams (especially since they have a fiend out for this fight). And the high number of creatures in this encounter means AoEs will be effective. And as always Team Yams has an initiative advantage and has a good chance of killing some of them (potentially even all of them via AoEs) before they get a turn.

Also, while they can see through Darkness, they can't see through, say, a Wall of Fire. Once Team Neogi's vision is blocked, they can't target Hold Persons or Counterspells. So you only really need to get off one spell (you can Counterspell their Counterspells if you have to), then clean them up with raw damage. Even if they manage to get a status effect on someone, you can get rid of that effect just by hitting the Neogis hard enough that they either A) lose Concentration or B) die.

Another thing the Neogis have to worry about is that Hold Person gets countered by Lesser Restoration, which every single Yamara can cast as a racial spell and as a Warlock spell.

But what about the worst case scenario? Even if the Neogis actually manage to paralyze someone and their Manglers actually start dishing out massive damage before it gets removed, the healing power of Team Yams is so high that they can pop that PC right back up to full. Heck, even if they literally kill the character, they can Revivify them and pick them back up to full hp.

So yeah, I'm expecting this one to involve an initial exchange of counterspells fighting over getting a vision blocker up, followed by rapid death of Neogi and Manglers once the vision blocker is established, with many either dying outright or dying as they try to flee the Wall of Fire death zone (the only way out is through the fire).

8) Oh snap, the plot twist! Githyanki and Mind Flayers working together! Cue boss music.

Now, the Githyanki Supreme Commander is mostly just another strong beatstick that Team Yams can run over -- it can't even see through Darkness or anything. The problem is the Mind Flayer Arcanist.

The Mind Flayer is very dangerous, as it actually targets one of Yamara's few weaknesses (his garbage Intelligence saving throw) with a really devastating status effect. I often specifically put something to deal with deadly Int saves in my parties (it's on my checklist of stuff to be prepped for, as some Int saves are party killers), but Team Yams doesn't have that because I just cloned one character 4 times for lack of time. So this will be a test of Yamara's ability to adapt.

Mind Blast has a whopping 73.75% chance of working on Yamara despite his Halfling luck, and stunning him for a duration. On average, Mind Blast will stun a Yamara for ~2.8 rounds. You can't even remove the stun with Lesser or Greater Restoration. That's bad.

Likewise, if it succeeds, it disables Darkness and gives Advantage to hit, meaning the Supreme Commander suddenly starts hitting for a whopping ~93 DPR (including their Legendary Actions), and helping the Mind Flayer get extra attempts to grapple/extract brain (it actually has a >30% chance to miss even with Advantage, and takes multiple actions to attempt to Extract Brain).

There are a few things that Team Yams can do about this.

- The first is that if their Chain Pact familiars manage to scout the fight, they can pre-buff with Bless and Protection from Evil using their Cleric slots, considerably raising their chances. They can also cast Aura of Purity from the Mark of Healing Halfling list. A halfling with Bless and Aura of Purity character only has a 37.2% chance of failing a Mind Blast, even with -1 Int. Concentration on PFG&E may lower their damage output, but it'll still be enough -- Mind Flayer Arcanist is a doom machine, but a squishy doom machine.

- The second is that with +2+1d8 (from Gift of Alacrity) to initiative vs the Mind Flayer's +1, there's a strong chance that one or more Yamaras will go before it does. And if they do, the plan is nova that @#$%er right @#$%ing now before he gets a turn. With only 15 AC and 71 hit points, the Mind Flayer Arcanist can be killed by one or two Yamaras going before him.

The Yamara using Summon Fiend has an average DPR of 31.7 (from their EB) + ~47 (from their fiend) for a total of ~78.8. One using Spirit Shroud has 65.5 DPR That's including the benefit of Halfling Lucky, Advantage from being in Darkness, and the level 6 ability of Celestial-lock applying to the first ray that hits.

Yes, the Mind Flayer can Shield, but they can (and should) just Counterspell that -- this is the encounter where they should nova and not conserve resources.

- The third is that they can try to spread out so that they don't all get caught in a cone shape.

- The fourth is that even if you get unlucky and all the @#$% hits the fan, if even one Yamara is up after the Mind Blast, they can keep blasting away at the squishy Mind Flayer, and it's not going to get to Mind Blast again immediately. They can also drop 24 hp AoE heals or 30 hp single target heals as a bonus action (thanks, Gift of the Ever-Living Ones), making it a lot harder to actually finish off their allies.

Notably, Repelling Blast breaks grapples, so you can save people from getting their brains eaten so long as even one character is up in time.

Even if every single party member and all their familiars get Mind Blasted, there's a chance of it wearing off every round, and it's gonna take a bit for the Supreme Commander and Mind Flayer to actually chew through the 103 hp, 19 AC Yamaras. And once they start getting up, they can start burst healing + doing reliable damage to the Mind Flayer. Even if someone died, if they didn't die specifically from Extract Brain, you can Revivify them + heal them to a respectable 38 hp in one turn. Basically the bounceback potential of Team Yams is very high.

Once the Mind Flayer is dead, the Supreme Commander's ability to kill them through the death gate basically evaporates and it's just a matter of time.

__

Note the Mind Flayer can also try to cast spells instead of just trying to mind blast + eat brains, but doing so opens it up to Counterspells, Dispels, and/or having its Concentration broken -- ultimately, it has less actions to cast spells than Team Yams does. And stuff like Wall of Force won't actually impede a Yamara that much because they're Fey-Touched. I'd say it's more dangerous with the Mind Blasting.

Okay, but what if there were a lot less short rests than Max's scenario?
Then I would probably have actually bothered to take the time to write up my full party rather than just clone Mr. d'Jorasco there, but let's say we had 2 short rests instead, and stuck with just Team Yams. That gives us (between the entire party), 4 L6 slots, 36 L5 slots, 8 L1 slots, 288 hp worth of Healing Light (thanks to Gift of the Ever-Living Ones), 64 hp of cures from the Jorasco racial feature, plus 4x Lesser Restoration from the Jorasco racial feature, plus 4x Gift of Alacrity and 4x Misty Step from Fey-Touched, and then our Pact of the Chain familiars.

That's a lot of stuff. You could clear the 8 encounters above with that using a similar methodology to the one I already described -- I was intentionally holding back, and having tons of resources left over after each fight!

So, from the "entire party" perspective, we can straight up be using 6 spells per encounter over 8 encounters. Plus racial spells, Fey-Touched spells, Pact of the Chain familiars, cantrip combos, Healing Light, and Celestial Resilience. Plus the fact that some of those spell slots have long durations, and are going to last for multiple encounters!

____

Whew. Hopefully I didn't miss anything as I kind of had to hurry up as this took even longer than anticipated. Please correct me if I did.

[MaxWilson]

Whew. Hopefully I didn't miss anything as I kind of had to hurry up as this took even longer than anticipated. Please correct me if I did.

Thanks, that was a good writeup. (As the author of the challenges I found your implied emotional reaction to 7 and 8 perfect, exactly what I'd hope for as a DM: a dawning realization that this fight might be real trouble, followed by a second realization that there's a solution. I found reading that immensely pleasurable.)

I think you made a good implicit case for why a Team Fighter cannot outperform Team Mark of Healing Warlock (too much resilience via Revivify/Aura of Vitality/etc.), which I believe is the subject under dispute. However, sometimes examples surprise us.

I'll roll up a Team Fighter-ish and edit their results into this post when I've got them. Edit: I put them in a separate post here.

That's a lot of stuff. You could clear the 8 encounters above with that using a similar methodology to the one I already described -- I was having tons of resources left over after each fight!

I think the key issue you'd run into is that you don't have access to all those resources at once, and you can't predict exactly when you'll need them. With only two short rests, what happens if you walk into the neogis when you're down 4 of 12 spell slots (since you're routinely spending a Darkness spell every ten minutes of travel, or perhaps first thing in every encounter)? Now you've only got parity with the Neogi's 8 slots (Hold Person IV vs. Counterspell V vs Counterspell IV) but they still have Charm spells and can Counterspell your attempts to block vision with Wall of Fire V (although their Counterspells aren't 5th level so can fail), complicating your attempt to quickly take down the Manglers and not leaving you any slots for Revivify. The danger quotient in this adventure is already pretty high with full resources; going in with merely slot parity makes it a potential permakill for at least one warlock (more than half the time I bet), maybe a TPK (on the order of 10% probability, is my guesstimate). Going from this encounter to the Githyanki without a short rest is also very dangerous.

I don't think looking at the average resources left over after most fights gives a true idea of the actual danger level for warlocks. Warlocks are swingy.

There's a reason I didn't want to rush PCs through this hypothetical labyrinth in only 3-4 hours. It feels unfair to me, more difficulty than I intended.

[DwarfFighter]

Let's take as an example the iconic fireball. It comes in line at 5th level with 8 dice of dmg, when you upcast it at higher level you increase by 1 die per spell-level, so 1 die every 2 character levels, while the hp progression increases by 1 die per character level.

This observation is true, but is it relevant? You are comparing a spell cast by player characters with the character's hit points. The fireball starts out at 8d6 damage cast by a 5th level Wizard or Sorcerer at 5d6 HD, meaning it doesn't really start with any obvious relation to the caster's HD. Constitution modifiers to hp also come into play, making for even more variation between characters of the same class and same level.

You will probably find that the gains of up-casting a spell scales poorly with the spell slot cost. This is likely by design since it makes little sense to have high-level spells when you can cast your first-level spell with the same effect without making the investment of learning a new spell!

However, poor scaling obviously doesn't mean up-casting is worthless. As you play the game and start balancing your spell resources you will find them occasionally useful. Sometimes you have spent all your matching level spell slots and have only a higher slot available to cast the spell. Sometimes you need to prepare your spells to cover more situations, leaving you with lower-level spells that suddenly become relevant. And so on.

-DF

[LudicSavant]

Thanks, that was a good writeup.

what happens if you walk into the neogis when you're down 4 of 12 spell slots

Now you've only got parity with the Neogi's 8 slots

I feel 8 party slots is more than you need to deal with the Neogis. They only have 4 Counterspells, and each of those Counterspells has a 50% chance to fail, meaning they're likely to run out quick if they try to Counterspell everything you cast. The worst case scenario (e.g. "RNGesus is trying his best to kill you") is that it takes 5 casts to get your Wall of Fire up, but it'll likely take less.

After that, they're pinballs for Repelling Blast, or easy victims for an AoE like Synaptic Static.

The manglers aren't very worrying unless someone's actually paralyzed (their 6 attack flurry only does ~10.4 DPR through Disadvantage. Disadvantage + decent AC is seriously strong vs swarm attacks). And that paralysis has a low chance of success, and, even if it is successful, can be removed by the racial spell of anyone in the party.

Side note: I basically skipped over talking about the Pact of the Chain familiars much to save time (that post took me a while as it was!) If I made good use of the scouts, then the Warlocks would get to use their resources even more efficiently due to extra information (unless the Labyrinth is somehow set up to make scouting not work). They also would have done things like, say, making Repelling Blast more impactful by dropping ball bearing and caltrops and oil.

Or, I could even just have them fly a bedsheet between two of them, drape it in front of the casters to hide them from the line of sight of Counterspellers (it requires a target you can see), and get that Wall of Fire up in just one slot.

[MaxWilson]

I feel 8 party slots is more than you need to deal with the Neogis. They only have 4 Counterspells, and each of those Counterspells has a 50% chance to fail, meaning they're likely to run out quick if they try to Counterspell everything you cast. The worst case scenario (e.g. "RNGesus is trying his best to kill you") is that it takes 5 casts to get your Wall of Fire up, but it'll likely take less.

After that, they're pinballs for Repelling Blast, or easy victims for an AoE like Synaptic Static.

The manglers aren't very worrying unless someone's actually paralyzed (their 6 attack flurry only does ~10.4 DPR through Disadvantage. Disadvantage + decent AC is seriously strong vs swarm attacks). And that paralysis has a low chance of success, and, even if it is successful, can be removed by the racial spell of anyone in the party.

Side note: I basically skipped over talking about the Pact of the Chain familiars much to save time (that post took me a while as it was!) If I made good use of the scouts, then the Warlocks would get to use their resources even more efficiently due to extra information (unless the Labyrinth is somehow set up to make scouting not work). They also would have done things like, say, making Repelling Blast more impactful by dropping ball bearing and caltrops and oil.

Or, I could even just have them fly a bedsheet between two of them, drape it in front of the casters to hide them from the line of sight of Counterspellers (it requires a target you can see), and get that Wall of Fire up in just one slot.

4 Counterspells per round you mean? 8 total, plus any they get by Charming a PC.

The Manglers have advantage on round 1 against anyone who hasn't taken a turn yet, to offset the disadvantage from Darkness, and enough HP to make it through the Wall of Fire. If the guy concentrating on Darkness happens to roll low on initiative, that Darkness might pop--yet another threat vector to worry about while the Counterspell war is raging.

BTW I don't think Synaptic Static's d6 penalty stacks with itself. "During that time, it rolls a d6 and subtracts the number rolled from all its attack rolls and ability checks, as well as its Constitution saving throws to maintain concentration."

RE: familiars, the notional labyrinth isn't intended to be susceptible to scouting. It's all riddles and chutes into cage fights, because I wanted to keep the comparison simple and Combat As Sport-based, not Combat As War-ish. In a real game of course recon is vital but this is just a thought experiment about endurance.

BTW I rolled up my stats for the Fighter-ish party and wouldn't you know, they are perfect caster party stats! One of them is 17 18 10 18 15 12!! Ideal for a MAD caster like a Goblin Shepherd Druid 10/Hexblade 2. (Sigh.) I was originally intending that spot to go to an Arcane Archer but I made it a Warbearian so the stats wouldn't go completely to waste. Wound up with a Battlemaster, Arcane Archer, Celestial Warbearian, and Moon Druid (11 10 13 8 10 12).