Level 6 Battle Royale tournament PARTY builds

[Corey]

"Casting Time: 1 reaction, which you take when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell"

That's from Counterspell, it's separate from the range, I'd generally avoid using the wiki for stuff like this, they reword things frequently, but Counterspell etc. are SRD, so using something like D&D Beyond or Roll20 links works just fine.

DNDBeyond, two other websites, and my admittedly old physical copy of the PHB all say Counterspell has a range of 60 ft.

That they mention the distance 60 ft. in some other text as well does not contradict the fact that they also list the range (or in DNDBeyond's case "Range/Area") as 60 ft.

If all those sources are wrong, could somebody please point me at the correction?

[Tana]

Since we got to this point, I'll post what I made for the party, as this touches upon that:
- Vuman Devotion Dexadin: XBE + SS - Defense-style

1. Bless, Command, Cure Wounds, Divine Favor, Protection from Evil and Good [Devotion], Sanctuary [Devotion]
2. Aid, Protection from Poison, Lesser Restoration [Devotion], Zone of Truth [Devotion]

- Hill Dwarf Moon Druid: Alert

1. Fog Cloud, Entangle, Healing Word
2. Spike Growth, Heat Metal, Lesser Restoration
3. Dispel Magic, Conjure Animals, Plant Growth

- Tiefling Lore Bard: Alert

1. Dissonant Whispers, Sleep, Faerie Fire, Healing Word
2. Blindness/Deafness, Shatter, Silence
3. Dispel Magic, Hypnotic Pattern, Conjure Animals, Counterspell [I thought about picking Shield instead of Counterspell here]

- Half-Elf Red Draconic Sorcerer [initially I made it a Divination Wizard but I realised that Portent is less valuable with this many important enemies though a good reserve ability and requires vision, while having 13+Dex base AC on the Sorc and Twin Mage Armor makes the plan way better]: Alert

1. Fog Cloud, Mage Armor, Shield
2. Hold Person
3. Counterspell, Dispel Magic, Fireball [Wizard list also included Web and Magic Missile for downed slaying]


The idea was of course to cast Conjure Animals and hope to get something with Blindsight, with the Moon Druid having Giant Constrictor Snake option. Then just abusing Alert and blindsight to gain advantage while enemies have disadvantage and further enabling Hiding (most characters have Stealth proficiency with only Moon Druid lacking it; Half-Elf and Vuman give a skill and Bard can get it naturally and gets +3 skills from Lore to boot). The reason for the ranged Paladin was to make it easier for the Pally to position so that their aura could do maximum work while still being martially useful; and Sacred Weapon + Bless makes for a pretty good XBE/SS user once active and as I mentioned earlier, long-term contribution is more important in a battle royale than short term contribution.

The party realisation in the game was a bit different: the Wizard/Sorc player got replaced with another one and they refused to pick Mage Armor and Fog Cloud, ending up with a Dragonborn Red Draconic Sorc with Haste and Magic Missile (?), and the Bard switched to Half-Elf and switched Counterspell for Aura of Vitality. The Sorc went with Twin Haste as their first line strategy.

The other teams were:

Team 1
Totem Barb
Draconic Sorcerer (unidentified type)
Life Cleric
Valor Bard

Team 2
Frenzy Barb
Wizard (unidentified type, but not an Evoker or a Diviner)
Life Cleric
Valor Bard


Basically, Conjure Animals + Twin Haste + Bless allowed the party to kill the enemy arcanists on round 2. This lead to a 6v4 where the party won eventually at full HP because apparently neither enemy party brought Dispel Magic. Hasted Giant Elk with the easy double Charges or Charge + Stomps and the turn 3+ four-attack Sacred Weapon + Bless Paladin ripped through the parties while Conjure Animals did most of the heavy lifting. Druid rolled Elks for their first Conjure Animals while the Bard rolled Giant Centipedes, both decent rolls. The Moon Druid used both Wildshapes and some level 2 slots for self-healing over the first 4 rounds and then just retreated and let Conjured Animals finish the job.

Really anticlimactic and the magic items or monsters didn't really end up mattering in part because the fight was so one-sided and in part because the DM also ruled that picking up a magic weapon takes an action (as opposed to the free Item interaction) so nobody ever picked it up and the only monster that spawned was ignored. Ultimately the fight took 9 rounds with first the arcanists, then the Clerics, then the Bards and finally the Barbarians being killed in that order.


Honestly, that's a part of why this scenario interest me, because the effortlessly winning strategy feels so obviously flawed. Twin Haste feels suicidal against well-prepared enemies; letting enemies Dispel Conjure Animals AND Haste AND Bless while also causing the Moon Druid to drop a turn (and another Haste AND Bless and cause Paladin drop a turn) with a single casting is just stupid. Of course, this was immaterial because somehow none of the six enemy casters had Dispel so this didn't really get tested and Conjure Animals ran away with the match effortlessly (admittedly it's really nice on the Pally from a pure DPR perspective, letting them shoot twice on both first turns while applying Bless and Sacred Weapon before going to town). They did get Fireballed and Hypnotic Patterned and such but you can position animals within a 60'/60' area so they didn't all get hit (I think there was 1 non-Patterned Elk left after R3)...and as the enemy Fireballers were dead-dead before the end of round 2, that didn't really matter that much. They got one action overall and with Pally aura + Bless, the Concentration and saves were largely successful (the reason the party ended the fight at full HP was animals tanking while they healed up).

So I'm interested in what kind of game and metagame would occur if all the parties (preferably like 4) were actually competently built. It seems to naturally build around Conjure Animals and Dispel Magic, but I'm not certain what the exact ramifications thereof are yet - it feels like the strong options are strong enough that in spite of the cost of subjecting yourself to potential Twinned Dispels, it's worth it.

Update for your Sorcerer:

Elemental Adept feat (fire), tough feat for extra Sweet hp.
64 hp with average dice.
Dragon Sorcerer.
16 ac, 21 with shield
Resistence to fire.

Heightein Spell and Empower at 120ft.
Its one shot against arcanists, ALL with disadvantage.
Empowered + Elemental Adept for average 36 damage Fireball + 3. For average 39 damage per fireball. It ignores fire resistence.

Heightein Spell fear against melee and its over.

[Corey]

Elementalist feat (fire), tough feat for extra Sweet hp.
64 hp with average dice.
Dragon Sorcerer.
16 ac, 21 with shield
Resistence to fire.

Heightein Spell and Empower at 120ft.
Its one shot against arcanists, ALL with disadvantage.
Empowered + Elemental Adept for average 36 damage Fireball + 3. For average 39 damage per fireball. It ignores fire resistence.

Heightein Spell fear against melee and its over.

4 sorcery points plus a 3rd-level spell slot is a lot. And you just described a 64-HP arcanist who supposedly can vaporize rival arcanists with 39 point damage hits.

I presume the save DC is 14 or so?

[Tana]

4 sorcery points plus a 3rd-level spell slot is a lot. And you just described a 64-HP arcanist who supposedly can vaporize rival arcanists with 39 point damage hits.

I presume the save DC is 14 or so?

Yes, its, but its a lot of burst AoE damage.
If you defeat the fragile member first, you win.
Convert low level spells into Sorcery Points to regain Sorcery Points.

Sorcerer gains extra hp and free mage armor, with Tough feat, Its 62 average HP and 16 or 15 AC on first round.

DC 14 with disadvantage.

[Corey]

Yes, its, but its a lot of burst AoE damage.
If you defeat the fragile member first, you win.
Convert low level spells into Sorcery Points to regain Sorcery Points.

Sorcerer gains extra hp and free mage armor, with Tough feat, Its 62 average HP and 16 or 15 AC on first round.

DC 14 with disadvantage.

Using your 3 Level 3 slots that way would require 12 sorcery points, only 6 of which you start with. So you'd be left with 4 Level 1 slots, or 2 Level 2 slots, or half-and-half.

(Separate bonus action for each spell slot you convert. Not an issue if you're using Level 2s; slight delay if you're using Level 1s.)

Of course, you do also have your cantrips, at what I presume is +3 CHA.

[Tana]

Using your 3 Level 3 slots that way would require 12 sorcery points, only 6 of which you start with. So you'd be left with 4 Level 1 slots, or 2 Level 2 slots, or half-and-half.

(Separate bonus action for each spell slot you convert. Not an issue if you're using Level 2s; slight delay if you're using Level 1s.)

Of course, you do also have your cantrips, at what I presume is +3 CHA.

3 Giant Fireball + friendss damage? Can the enemy party survive 3 rounds?

After that, Expedius Retread for dash as bonus action for Firebolt that ignores resistence and deals extra damage(elemental Adept and Elemental Afinity), for average 16 damage at 120ft

[Dork_Forge]

DNDBeyond, two other websites, and my admittedly old physical copy of the PHB all say Counterspell has a range of 60 ft.

That they mention the distance 60 ft. in some other text as well does not contradict the fact that they also list the range (or in DNDBeyond's case "Range/Area") as 60 ft.

If all those sources are wrong, could somebody please point me at the correction?

The range is irrelevant, the trigger is a creature casting a spell within 60 feet of you, which is listed in the casting time. Distant spell can increase the range, but it has no effect on the trigger condition of the spell.

To put it another way, Distant Spell takes effect when you cast a spell with a range of 5ft or greater. It doesn't work because you're unable to cast Counterspell to begin with unless the creature is already within trigger range, which is also the range of the spell, but they are not the same thing.

[Corey]

The range is irrelevant, the trigger is a creature casting a spell within 60 feet of you, which is listed in the casting time. Distant spell can increase the range, but it has no effect on the trigger condition of the spell.

To put it another way, Distant Spell takes effect when you cast a spell with a range of 5ft or greater. It doesn't work because you're unable to cast Counterspell to begin with unless the creature is already within trigger range, which is also the range of the spell, but they are not the same thing.

Ohhhh. So you're saying that part of the condition for you being allowed to cast it is that what you're counterspelling is within 60 feet of you. That makes sense. Sorry for my obtuseness.

[Corey]

3 Giant Fireball + friendss damage? Can the enemy party survive 3 rounds?

After that, Expedius Retread for dash as bonus action for Firebolt that ignores resistence and deals extra damage(elemental Adept and Elemental Afinity), for average 16 damage at 120ft

Are you assuming that each enemy party hangs out together within Fireball range of each other for several rounds, without doing anything at range to seriously threaten you in return?

Good news for your plan is that there's probably only one Counterspeller per team, who as per the discussion above likely will not be in range to bother your sorcerer too much.

Also good news is that of the classes who do well on DEX saves, only Bards and Barbarians are likely to be represented.

[Tana]

Are you assuming that each enemy party hangs out together within Fireball range of each other for several rounds, without doing anything at range to seriously threaten you in return?

Good news for your plan is that there's probably only one Counterspeller per team, who as per the discussion above likely will not be in range to bother your sorcerer too much.

Also good news is that of the classes who do well on DEX saves, only Bards and Barbarians are likely to be represented.

No, Im assuming that the most fragile enemy is easily dead + party damage. Its over or nearly over on 3 turns.
Barbarians and Rogues, scorching ray, but they are not a threat.

Counterspell is 60ft range, fireball 150ft.
A fragile arcanist without mage armor and reaction shield Spell... 😳.

[Corey]

No, Im assuming that the most fragile enemy is easily dead + party damage. Its over or nearly over on 3 turns.
Barbarians and Rogues, scorching ray, but they atento a threat.

I presume you're only talking about one of the enemy groups?

And you're also assuming that they don't do anything to bother you with, for example, a WIS or INT save spell?

On the plus side -- if they drop Conjure Animals on you, you can probably afford to Fireball yourself to get rid of the critters, given your fire resistance. And you of course wouldn't spend sorcery points to do so.

Counterspell is 60ft range, fireball 150ft.

Yes, that's something of a problem. Standing near the middle of the arena to be in Counterspell range of the corners can cause other difficulties.

A fragile arcanist without mage armor and reaction shield Spell... 😳.

Not sure what you're talkig about there, since most of the discussion has involved other teams have draconic sorcerers too.

Utility lore bards, admittedly, probably won't have Mage Armor, also they will at least have DEX saves.

[Tana]

I presume you're only talking about one of the enemy groups?

And you're also assuming that they don't do anything to bother you with, for example, a WIS or INT save spell?

On the plus side -- if they drop Conjure Animals on you, you can probably afford to Fireball yourself to get rid of the critters, given your fire resistance. And you of course wouldn't spend sorcery points to do so.




Yes, that's something of a problem. Standing near the middle of the arena to be in Counterspell range of the corners can cause other difficulties.



Not sure what you're talkig about there, since most of the discussion has involved other teams have draconic sorcerers too.

Utility lore bards, admittedly, probably won't have Mage Armor, also they will at least have DEX saves.

Conjure Animals against Dragon Sorcerer?
Conjure Animals is a concentration Spell. The Druid Will be damaged and lose his concentration pretty easily. Conjure Animals is overrated, you cant choose the animal and the op is buffing It.

Dragon Sorcerer ok, Its pretty tank, other arcanist on middle of the arena, without mage armor and Shield? He is dead on first turn. Its not a good ideia.
Its a suicide Idea.

[Corey]

Conjure Animals against Dragon Sorcerer?
Conjure Animals is a concentration Spell. The Druid Will be damaged and lose his concentration pretty easily. Conjure Animals is overrated, you cant choose the animal and the op is buffing It.

Dragon Sorcerer ok, Its pretty tank, other arcanist on middle of the arena, without mage armor and Shield? He is dead on first turn. Its not a good ideia.
Its a suicide Idea.

If you're shooting at one team's Druid or Bard, then you may not also be shooting at any team's Sorcerer.

And by the way, 8 draft horses (to pick a monster not usually thought of as the best) are attempting 16d4 + 32 damage at +6 to hit. I presume you're reacting with Shield, so about 1/4 of that might get through, which is about 18 damage per round. Four rounds of that and you're both dead and also out of the spell slots you were reserving for something other than Fireballs.

[Frogreaver]

My issue with the fireball strategy is that there are will be life clerics out there.

That said a light cleric + dragon sorc + lore bard can throw 3 fireballs a turn. That’s pretty impressive. If I was going for a fireball tactic it would probably look something like that.

[Corey]

My issue with the fireball strategy is that there are will be life clerics out there.

That said a light cleric + dragon sorc + lore bard can throw 3 fireballs a turn. That’s pretty impressive. If I was going for a fireball tactic it would probably look something like that.

A quick-kill strategy isn't entirely crazy.

But even if you take one group out quickly, you'll have expended resources before fighting the next one. And they'll probably have spread out to get out of AoE zones. So if you have a Fireball strategy then you need a single-target focus strategy to follow it up.

And if I'm the third team, I'll have dropped a lot of Conjured Animals on the sorc blaster before he even finishes off his team's first opponent.

[Frogreaver]

A quick-kill strategy isn't entirely crazy.

But even if you take one group out quickly, you'll have expended resources before fighting the next one. And they'll probably have spread out to get out of AoE zones. So if you have a Fireball strategy then you need a single-target focus strategy to follow it up.

And if I'm the third team, I'll have dropped a lot of Conjured Animals on the sorc blaster before he even finishes off his team's first opponent.

Or I wait till for your team and the other to fight and then drop the fireballs on the loser. But I don't really think either scenario is likely. It's just not a great assumption that any team is going to get to stand back unscathed while the other 2 teams engage.

[Hael]

My experience with these sorts of things is that movement is OP.. a party that can all hide, or a party that can all fly or a party that all have very high movement speed tends to win.

This is bc they can force confrontation between the other groups and escape unscathed and then come in for mop up.

[Frogreaver]

My experience with these sorts of things is that movement is OP.. a party that can all hide, or a party that can all fly or a party that all have very high movement speed tends to win.

This is bc they can force confrontation between the other groups and escape unscathed and then come in for mop up.

IMO, the problems are with those tactics are:
1. The arena is small. Most ranged attacks can hit most of it, if not all of it, limiting the impact of high movement speed. Also, it's not like every character you can create even has the option for high movement speed. There will be some slow ones given the nature of this competition.
2. I don't think there's any way to give a whole party flight in this competition, and even if there was it would be magical, and dispel magic has a nice range and falling damage still hurts at this level.
3. There's no legitimate way for the whole party to hide.

[Eldariel]

I don't think kiting for the whole team is viable. As said, it's not possible to get everyone away (two could fly, one could burrow, one would be left stranded) and even if it were, the only one who has any shot at staying safe is the burrower; it's not worth using Concentration and level 3 slots just to stay away from Concentration and level 3 slots with some chance (there are flying forms on Conjure Animals list so even that's not guaranteed).

However, hiding within Fog Cloud most certainly is viable; level 2 Fog Cloud is available and one of those "not level 3 slots that can be game defining" and if enemies begin dispelling your level 2 Fog Clouds, well, you're very happy. This is the primary reason I'd prefer Fog Cloud over Sleet Storm; while Sleet Storm has sweet effects, it takes a level 3 slot and you'll most certainly be able to find good use for all of those anyways.


As for Fireball, it's certainly a good spell here especially on a Draconic Sorc. But I don't think it's viable as a plan of its own and I don't think Heighten Spell is worth it; for one, things like Bless, Bardic Inspiration and Aura of Protection kinda nerf disadvantage since they're not affected and 3 sorcery points just for slightly higher damage on one Fireball is a good way to run out of gas before you get to the final fight and then you're fighting against a whole team where your own arcanist is down to Flaming Spheres and Firebolts. And thanks to full HP from HD, even a Sorc will be able to have 60 HP (and if your Fireballs are threatening, anyone positioned centrally can Counterspell them regardless of where you cast them from; the arena is small enough that 60' radius in the middle will cover the whole area).

Also, if the enemy is engaging your team, Evoker is the only caster that can actually blast e.g. all the Conjured Animals without significant friendly fire. Taking Elemental Adept would make this even worse; if you get surrounded by animals, you can either just blast 3-4 of them or blast yourself for full damage as well.

Empower Spell is reasonable; it's fairly economical and the damage increase is solid. Twin Spell seems super-efficient though Twinned Haste specifically feels suboptimal. Twinned Dispels feel godlike though. Subtle feels good for the endgame; if you manage to survive until only two teams are remaining, that is when you can break out Subtle Counterspells on their Dispels while you Conjure Animals the **** outta them.

[Ogre Mage]

I would run --

1. Vengeance Paladin 6 (aura, bless, hold person, misty step)
2. Moon druid 6 (wildshape, conjure animals, hold person, dispel magic, heat metal)
3. Draconic sorcerer 6 (twinned spell, subtle spell, shield, suggestion, fireball, counterspell, dispel magic)
4. Life cleric 6 (bless, cure wounds, healing word, spiritual weapon, hold person, dispel magic, spirit guardians)

[Corey]

I would run --

1. Vengeance Paladin 6 (aura, bless, hold person, misty step)
2. Moon druid 6 (wildshape, conjure animals, hold person, dispel magic, heat metal)
3. Draconic sorcerer 6 (twinned spell, subtle spell, shield, suggestion, fireball, counterspell, dispel magic)
4. Life cleric 6 (bless, cure wounds, healing word, spiritual weapon, hold person, dispel magic, spirit guardians)

I think we're very close to consensus on the first three. And your option for #4 is one of the favored ones.

I'm leaning toward Life Cleric right now as well. Those 60 extra HP of non-spell healing could help a lot

[Frogreaver]

I think we're very close to consensus on the first three. And your option for #4 is one of the favored ones.

I'm leaning toward Life Cleric right now as well. Those 60 extra HP of non-spell healing could help a lot

IMO, the devotion paladin build using SS posted earlier seems better than a vengance paladin.

Life Cleric for the extra hp is solid. Still hard to pass up a Lore Bard for Bardic Inspiration saving throw bonuses, more counterspelling and either more fireballs or more conjure animals. I'm not sure whether more hp or better saves will win this one.

[Captain Panda]

Gave it a little thought. Dropped paladin for a fighter, just so that people running away is less of an issue.

Lineup:
1. V. Human: Sharpshooter/crossbow expert battlemaster fighter. Purely there to provide potential big bursts of damage at range.
2. Tiefling: Divination Wizard. Forcing things to fail saves (or make them) is nice. Here to counterspell and control enemies, mainly.
3. Wood elf Moon Druid. There to conjure animals and burrow away. If that fails, moon druid shapeshifting is still solid.
4. Half elf Lore Bard. Secrets are counterspell and conjure animals.

Two casts of conjure animals, which gives some very good high roll potential for extremely solid beasts. Moon druids, even if the attempts to dispel the summons go through, are still a very nice bag of all sorts of tricks. The wizard, bard, and druid can all heat metal and ruin the day of any paladin or other heavily armored character. The fighter can action surge and use precision dice to ensure hits to focus down an especially dangerous target.

Probably a pretty good team, here.

[Thunderous Mojo]

The 6th level limitation is a huge blow to Monks and Rogues....increase it up to 7th level and this whole exercise changes due to Evasion.

Round 1: Illusionary Fog Cloud via Silent Image..the idea is to get enough space to obscure the party...a 15' cube is sufficient.

(Given the arena size constraints Gust of Wind is not a bad spell...it counters Fog Cloud and offers limited control....I would expect some caster in this battle to have this spell.)

Cleric and Druid both use Meld into Stone...under the cover of the illusion.

If possible the remaining party members enter into a Rope Trick and pull up the rope. If this is not possible, do so on round 2. Hopefully under the cover of the illusion.

While it is possible Dispel Magic/Counterspell might be used on Round 1, I think there is a good chance that doesn't happen.

The party rides out the fracas whilst multiple Fear, Conjure Animals, and Fireball spells resolve themselves.

[Eldariel]

Re@Paladin vs. Fighter:
I think you definitely want the Paladin over the Fighter. While Fighter gives nice burst of damage (note, you don't need to go Vuman Fighter; you can give Vuman elsewhere due to Fighter's bonus ASI on 6) and solid at-will damage, Paladin helps the whole party not only maintain Concentration (which is really important since you don't really want to spend your only feat on Res: Con) but also gets to Concentrate on Bless (further augmenting attacks and saves) and most importantly, helps with saves. AOE save-or-X spells are pretty darn strong and getting hit by those drops Concentration just as surely as getting damaged. Further, something like Fireball can of course force higher-than-DC-10 saves on a failed save; succeeding the save is really nice. As is getting more spells; Command is a really good spell against any team without a Paladin and a non-Concentration effect the Pally has access to for instance (there's also Sanctuary, which is pretty nice).

And Devotion Pally actually becomes a fairly beastly at-will damage dealer even ranged: once you have Sacred Weapon and Bless active, you're attacking at +4+1d4 for 1d6+13 three times a turn. Ranger could do +3 for 1d6+13+1d6, Fighter could do +4 for 1d6+14 (via. ASI +2 Dex) and Action Surge and maneuvers, or Shield as backup (via. Eldritch Knight). Probably just maneuvers. So the Pally at-will is pretty darn solid actually.

The fact that the Pally takes some turns to get started isn't that big of a deal since Battle Royale is naturally slower-paced since nobody wants to be the one drawing everyone's attention in the start; they're guarding the party vs. spell incursion and further them being ranged lets them position so that their aura can do maximum work.

Re@Life Cleric over arcanist:
I kinda like the Life Cleric angle. It occurred to me too; Life Cleric is the only healing effect in addition to Paladin's Lay on Hands that gives enough healing to be worth it. Remember, downing creatures doesn't suffice, you need to kill them lest they just get yoyoed. This means Magic Missile, Conjure Animals or similar. With the rule that everyone has full HP from HD, double HP killing is functionally impossible so you have to go through the death gate for every downed character and wherever this fails, again thanks to the high base HP, Life Cleric could pop 30 HP for everyone which is a lot.


A quick comparison for the third caster slot, which is between:
- Diviner Wizard
- Evoker Wizard
- Enchanter Wizard
- Draconic Sorcerer (with some leeway in metamagic)
- Life Cleric

I don't think other Clerics offer as much as Life Cleric so there's that. Important stuff the Cleric can do:
- Silence
- Spirit Guardians (though it's surprisingly weak vs. Conjure Animals since you need them to start in range to take damage and generally they have enough movement to hit you anyways; also weak vs. vision denial)
- Dispel
- Hold Person
- Command
- Bless
- Blindness
- Mass Healing Word
- Healing Word
- Sanctuary

Important stuff the arcanists can do:
- Fog Cloud
- Fireball
- Dispel Magic
- Counterspell
- Blindness
- Mage Armor
- Magic Missile (to finish characters off; surprisingly important)
- Hold Person
- Web
- Hideous Laughter


The reason I went with an arcanist was for Fog Cloud specifically. In general, Arcanist has more "gotta stop this"-level Concentration spells on lower levels and tools for the lategame Dispel wars in Counterspell (and Subtle Spell). Meanwhile, Cleric has more non-Concentration goodies for when you aren't getting Dispel-spammed and yeah, those sweet 30 point heals for if things get rough and you are getting close to downed. If I weren't going with the Fog Cloud plan and didn't want to Mage Armor my casters, I would probably lean towards the Cleric. Two channel divinities is huge here and up to 120 points of healing is insane. Lacking the solid enemy damaging spells (remember, Core Cleric doesn't have Toll the Dead either) is a downside but one you can live with.

@Rope Trick
That's a great call. It's a level 2 spell and one enemies have to dispel if they want to get to you. In this case you'd have to use real Fog Cloud since the DM basically ruled that Illusions are useless, but that doesn't change much. I would probably not bother with Meld into Stone; the spell is solid but it seems redundant and it seems like you'd want to conserve as much resources as possible for when you need to finish off a party; like in the actual tournament, it's fully possible that the winning team emerges largely unscathed except few slots blown and you've still got a fight at your hands.

[Hael]

I don't think kiting for the whole team is viable. As said, it's not possible to get everyone away (two could fly, one could burrow, one would be left stranded) and even if it were, the only one who has any shot at staying safe is the burrower; it's not worth using Concentration and level 3 slots just to stay away from Concentration and level 3 slots with some chance (there are flying forms on Conjure Animals list so even that's not guaranteed)..

It doesnt have to be a perfect getaway. Kiting or hiding or flying can be used at any moment where an opportunity arises, and typically it happens early and often. The teams that don't have these options, end up stuck engaged with each other.

Teams that have a great deal of getaway or safe zones (like eg rope trick) often have very simple win conditions. It can be as simple as taking out the two characters that can dispel magic, or the one that has high passive perception or the one ranged archer.

On that note, under no circumstance should anyone be melee only. So things like paladins don't make any sense to me. You are immensely better off with 4 battlemaster archers that can one turn burst the healing or CC or ranged dpr and keep running. Sure they can't guarantee they will always be safe, but thats not the point. The melee player will spend most of his time swinging at something that are distractions, or worse, not doing anything at all.

Drow are going to be very good here, with darkness orbs or faerie fire.

[Frogreaver]

Rope Trick is a great plan. It's the one way I could see a team potentially hide. Of course, i suppose it would be possible for opponents to cut the rope leaving half the enemy team on the ground and half in the extradimensional space. Though this can probably be countered by using 5ft ropes. It's also interesting that as long as the rope is down enemies can also climb up it. So it's probably essential that you cast that spell in the cover of a fogcloud to draw less attention. It's also not perfectly clear if rope trick can be dispelled. All the spell does is create an entrance to an extradimensional space. Dispel Magic says choose one creature, object or magical effect within range. An extradimensional space wouldn't really qualify as being in a 120ft range. I guess it's up to our house DM @Eldariel on this one.

[Ogre Mage]

IMO, the devotion paladin build using SS posted earlier seems better than a vengance paladin.

Life Cleric for the extra hp is solid. Still hard to pass up a Lore Bard for Bardic Inspiration saving throw bonuses, more counterspelling and either more fireballs or more conjure animals. I'm not sure whether more hp or better saves will win this one.

I seriously considered the lore bard and it would be a solid choice. I went with the life cleric because of the lore bard's lack of defense. AC is very important in PvP. That is a strong point for the life cleric and a weak one for the lore bard. The bard also does not have key defensive spells like shield. I suppose the lore bard could start with the moderately armored feat, but that is one less precious feat spot which could have been filled with alert, lucky or warcaster.

[Eldariel]

It doesnt have to be a perfect getaway. Kiting or hiding or flying can be used at any moment where an opportunity arises, and typically it happens early and often. The teams that don't have these options, end up stuck engaged with each other.

Teams that have a great deal of getaway or safe zones (like eg rope trick) often have very simple win conditions. It can be as simple as taking out the two characters that can dispel magic, or the one that has high passive perception or the one ranged archer.

On that note, under no circumstance should anyone be melee only. So things like paladins don't make any sense to me. You are immensely better off with 4 battlemaster archers that can one turn burst the healing or CC or ranged dpr and keep running. Sure they can't guarantee they will always be safe, but thats not the point. The melee player will spend most of his time swinging at something that are distractions, or worse, not doing anything at all.

Drow are going to be very good here, with darkness orbs or faerie fire.

This is precisely why I'm suggesting ranged Paladin. This enables the Pally to position so that the Aura of Protection provides maximum value and they get to use their Concentration, which would be wasted with a Fighter (Eldritch Knight 6 doesn't really have anything of particular value, Battlemaster offers nice burst but it seems to me like it's not nearly as much as +3 to saves and Bless from a Pally vs. enemy teams that are likely to contain 3ish casters). Helps with Concentration, saves vs. Hypnotic Patterns/Hideous Laughters/Hold Persons/Entangles/Webs/Fireballs/Blindnesses/Commands/Dissonant Whispers/Greases/Faerie Fires/etc. and

[Corey]

Agreed that melee-only characters have little appeal, because because of the difficulty in reliably reaching opponents and because it might be tempting for a third team to AoE a melee fight.

Martials should be good archers.

Issue regarding Paladins -- do you really want your team clustering w/in a 10-ft radius to get the boost to saves?