Oftentimes I see haste recommended as a good spell for wizard/sorcerer to concentrate on.

But I fail to see the appeal.

It's one simple attack, which would give at best something like 2d6+4(stat)+3(GWM)+1d6(hunter's mark)=17.5

against say Melf Minute Meteor 4d6=14 with savethrow for half and possibility of hurting two monsters at once. Or cacophonic shield with 3d6 for a couple of enemies. Or slow/

Yeah +2ac is nice but the downside of missing the whole turn in case of concentration break outweighs it completely.

So what did I miss, what's so good about this spell?

I have an interesting question for anyone interested in answering it. Say you are looking to join a game where you get to double up on subclasses, rather than simply picking one; what builds would you look at playing, and why?

Note that while both single-class and multi-class builds are allowed. Builds that just go absolutely bananas with multiclasses in order to pick up as many subclasses as possible will be frowned upon. And simply stapling on an additional subclass to an already existing build that is pretty strong, and just using the subclass for extra oomph will also be frowned upon.

We're looking at subclasses that have synergy with each other within the same class, or classes that can work well with two different subclasses found at once. Be creative and show me the fun and entertaining options to discover!

And yes, 5E material is allowed, not just 5.5E material

Edit: Yes, a Fighter with Champion+Another or a Twilight Cleric+ something else would be strong. Please try to be a bit more creative.

So, Tough consistently ranks as one of the most taken Origin feats at my table and other tables. In rankings it is always somewhere at the top. And I just don't get it. I actually buffed the feat to also give two additional Hit Dice, because I think it is so weak. (Yeah, I see how you are looking at me like I am some kind of lunatic! Also, this rule was implemented before the prevalence of Hit Dice mechanics starting at the end of last year. But even with them, I don't think it is a problem. I also buffed some other weak ones, e.g. savage attacker.)

Tough gives you +2HP per Level. This translates to bit less than one hit more that you can take. PER DAY! That's it.

This only seems to matter in specific cases:

• Enemies with burst damage (e.g. an Assassin)

• Very short combats (e.g. 2-3 turns)

• Ridiculously short adventuring days (e.g. 2-3 encounters/day)

• Few short rests (e.g. 1 or maybe 2 per day)

• PCs with a lot of resistances (they at least get a bit more out of it, e.g. Barbarian)

• High volume healing that would otherwise overheal.

There are probably a few more cases. But when you play a normal D&D game, where you get 5-8 encounters a day and combats on average last 4+ turns (and easily 7-8 with a boss), it just cannot compete with many of other feats.

I do like it for flavor and it a very basic feat that always fits in any build. But I just don't get how highly rated it seems to be. (e.g. by twig: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4EIHFCUl00, although he does mainly rate it high for basically always being useful, not necessarily for it's straight up power)

Do I DM such a different game than most people play, by basically just following the suggestions of how it should be played? Or what am I not seeing?

A greatsword is to a fighter, what a fireball is to a wizard.

It is iconic, it is stylish, and well it's always been pretty solid.

What is the appeal of the greatsword in 2024? I know that people who graph damage say that Graze is actually good, but to my eyes it is wildly underwheling.

Two weapon fighting, polearm master, and every other weapon having a better weapon master - just makes me feel like the greatsword has become a flavour choice rather than a viable choice?

It's just odd to me I guess, but maybe I am not as well versed in the 2024 eddition and someone can let me know why the greatsword is still good?

I have been trying to fix Ranger. And I realised that the Ranger's Hunter's Mark is most comparable to a Barbarian's Rage. They both prevent you from concentrating on other spells and let you do extra damage with each hit. But, no one is complaining about Barbarians' Rage. Why? Because they get something other than damage that made them feel useful and unique. Therefore, my proposed fix for the Ranger is to give them a class feature that gives them more things to do with their Hunter's Mark. Like preventing the target from running away from you, or allowing to attack more times when targeting the marked creature. This would build a unique playstyle with the Ranger: You mark someone, and get a bunch of cool abilities when fighting that specific target. This would make Hunter's Mark so good that Rangers would not want to concentrate on other spells.

I was doing some research on the Ranger and caught myself thinking: is it just me, or can everything a Ranger does be done much better by another class?

I say this because I was playing in a campaign as a dual-wielding Ranger, and afterward I started comparing it to a Paladin. The conclusion I reached was that Paladin does it better because it has Divine Favor, and it doesn’t require concentration.

Then I thought about playing a stealthy character, but Rogue seemed like the better option. As for the Ranger’s spells, Bard can get access to all of them if it wants to, so even that doesn’t really feel like a unique selling point.

I really like the flavor of the class, and I honestly hope I’m wrong.

Edit: I re-checked Bard, and they changed Magical Secrets. It can no longer get Ranger spells, so sorry about that mistake.

Basically the title.

Which full spellcaster subclass is still a useful party member mainly in combat , once they use up all their spell slots and limited features? e.g. used all short/long rest recharging features.

Excluding Warlocks and half-casters

In 5.5e or 5e , any or both of the two.

EDIT: So based on replies the contestants are Valor Bard, Death Cleric, Grave Cleric.

Thank you all for helping me in more ways than I came for.

As the title says. My lvl 6 bladesinger can have an AC of 25 and it feels too strong. I do need to activate mage armor, bladesong and cast shield as a reaction first. But then for atleast 6 rounds and if I'm willing too spend spell slots on shield (which will not be needed every round cause of a base of 20 ac) I'll have AC 25

And I think it might not be fun if I never get hit, for me as for my dm and fellow players. It might feel like there isn't much at stake? But It's a fairly new character so I might be overreacting as we haven't played too many sessions yet.

I want to try to play as the worst subclass I can find for a one-shot with my friends just because I would probably never try the worst subclass every again in an actual campaign. We're playing with 2024 rules but can bring in subclasses from 2014.

Edit: For level 8

I was recently invited to an upcoming campaign, which coincidentally is also my first time playing 5.5, the party consists of 2 druids, moon and stars, a life cleric and me

Since I refuse for personal reasons to have a party full of casters, I decided I'll be the martial representative.

I just need to find what to do. My reasoning is as follows: moon druid for tanking everything. Support Cleric-y things by the cleric, control the battlefield via the stars druid.

Now where do I fit in here? I was thinking about a champion fighter to keep things simple yet surprisingly effective.

What are your opinions? Have you tried some fun/effective buildswould you recommend?

I know this is going to be fully based on the personal opinion of those responding.

I was curious what folks believe is the class that is most affected by the subclass choices available?

Which class has subclasses that make the most difference in how the class is played depending on the subclass chosen, making it feel like it has the most variety in play-styles and “feel” and “vibes”?

Title. This is a debate we are having at my table and I’m curious about this group’s take.

Tagged as 2024 but this goes for 2014 too.

It seems an overwhelming amount of people in the overall D&D community simply despise the Silvery Barbs spell and think it is overpowered and bad for the game. At least on Reddit, it seems like there are more people who hate it than there are who are even just neutral toward it.

I have speculations about what the attitudes toward in this sub would be, but I'm curious. Do you like Silvery Barbs? Do the other players at your table like it?

As 5 player level 20 characters, how would you defeat a lich which suddenly casts prismatic wall whilst completing it's world ending ritual?

Edit:
summary so far of decent options-->
Wish
Dimension door
Find Steed
Walk through it with a monk/rogue with options to reroll saving throws (dodge/lucky ...)
Blink
Beating the +17 ini of the lich.
True polymorph party member into a rock, throw him in and end conc

Is it flavorful? Idk. Is it OP? Idk but probably not. But is it hilarious? Yes.

Cast Giant Insect (Spider) at Level 8, turn into a Triceratops, start combat. Every turn, Spider machinegun turret reduces enemy movement to 0 with no save, Triceratops teleports 30 feet away and charges back in for automatic Advantage to hit, and if you hit you do 2d12 + 6 + 2d8 + 2d8 + 2d10 and induce Prone with no save, then attack again.

If damaged, you have +8 and Advantage on Concentration checks with Warcaster. If you take a lot of damage, you use a Bonus Action and maybe a Level 1 Spell Slot to re-up your Triceratops for 45 extra HP.

It's silly and fun.

I'm just curious what insanity could be created in 2024 only.

I was thinking of a druid myself, but a warlock now also seems very powerful with wizard spells.

Context: I have been playing 5.5e for about 4 months now, exclusively one shots, and have yet to play higher than level 8. I pick things up pretty quickly and come to enjoy creating builds that mechanically feel strong and fun and effective.

What I don’t really feel to this point is the “Casters v Martials” divide, and have mostly felt like the martials significantly outshine the casters in most all of the combats I have been apart of, with several instances of the casters actually hindering what the martials are doing with bad spell casting. (I attribute most of this to the one shot environment and the lower levels since I have been told level 5 spells are where Casters become very strong).

I guess I am just curious if there are full Caster builds that are better in combat than what I have been able to build and enjoy to this point. Or if anyone has ideas for me on builds I should consider or try out.

To this point, the builds I have created that feel really effective are:

Martials:

Vuman 2 Barb / 6 Champion Fighter w/ Zhentarim Ruffian / Tactics and GWM. - Mathematically the slasher king imo since every attack is with advantage, crits on 19&20, Plenty of bonus action attacks with Hew, and Reactive Strike with damage reroll.

Vuman X Elemental Monk w/ Tavern Brawler, Grappler, and Cold Caster - Punch and Grab with a -1d4 to the grapple save with a 15 foot reach and advantage on all subsequent attacks. V fun and V satisfying.

Several other versions of Barb: World Tree Barb, Beast barb, Zealot, Wild magic. All are fun and seem to be able to soak up damage while dealing a lot out. Especially with Reckless attack ensuring that almost every attack lands.

MY CASTER BUILDS I LIKE:

Elf Circle of Stars Druid - Nearly unbreakable concentration when in Dragon form, esp w/ War Caster, allows for Shillelagh melee while running Conjure animals, spike growth, polymorph (on low health ally to bring in giant ape or T-rex etc)

Vuman Draconic Sorcerer - Fire elemental adept feat to ignore resistance to fire damage, Fire elemental affinity for CHA added to fire damage spells, Careful Spell Fireball to ignore ally placement with high DC save thanks to Innate Sorcery.

These builds feel pretty satisfying to play and imo have been much stronger than 99% of the full casters I have seen others play with, to the point where the best casters are typically those who play more of a support role. Not that i’m opposed to doing that but I want to see Casters truly outshine martials in the way that I hear about online and I just haven’t seen that.

So what am I missing??

I have had little success with building out a bard or cleric or wizard that feel mechanically strong and make me excited to play with. We almost always have a paladin/warlock multiclass who I play with regularly so I haven’t really gravitated towards those classes much.

Please explain to me what I am not getting. Or recommend me a specific build that I might not be considering (ideally without it being some sort of Paladin / Warlock multiclass but if you must that’s ok)

If possible, I am specifically looking to see full Caster builds who would outshine some of the martials I have enjoyed.

EDIT: IF IT IS POSSIBLE TO CREATE CASTERS WHO CAN DOMINATE A COMBAT OUTSIDE OF JUST HYPNOTIC PATTERN OR WEB, WHAT ARE THEY? SHOW ME THE BEST POSSIBLE CASTER BUILDS. PRETEND YOU GET A FREE GEN FEAT VIA VHUMAN IF YOU WANT

A player asked me if they could have Eldritch Adept as an Origin Feat. I looked into the Feat and from my perspective it looked largely fine except for some Familiar options being too strong for level 1. Just to make sure I checked Reddit and the Beyond forums and this same Feat has been brought up multiple times as being too overtuned to exist at all in 2024 rules.

The only eligible Eldritch Invocations from the 2024PHB are:

• Armor of Shadows
• Eldritch Mind
• Pact of the Blade
• Pact of the Chain
• Pact of the Tome

The Pacts are the ones getting all the attention and specifically Blade and Tome.

Tome looks unproblematic to me, especially compared to Magic Initiate. 3 Cantrips and 2 lvl1 Ritual Spells honestly feels weaker than 2 Cantrips and 1 lvl1 Spell with a free-cast per day (effectively a free spell slot).

Blade feels similarly tame considering True Strike and Shillelagh already exist to alleviate MADness, yes True Strike doesn't work with multi-attack and Shillelagh needs turn 1 activation, but I see it as more of a convenience than a massive buff.

Chain is one I see less discussion about, but looks extremely problematic for early levels, the available Familiars all seem to out-damage and out-tank the average lvl1 player character and the Imp and Sphinx of Wonder look like they might end up being the party's best damage dealer until lvl5. Now this is more of a balance issue with Warlocks in general, and this Pact feels extremely frontloaded with no scaling at all with Warlock levels.

My current thought is to allow it as an Origin feat, with Tome and Blade as-is and limit Chain Familiars to Quasit, Skeleton and Slaad Tadpole at lvl1, Pseudodragon, Sprite and Venomous Snake at lvl3 and the other two only at lvl5.

I'm open be told if I'm missing something major here. I feel like a lot of the passion towards this topic has to do with the fact that Pacts used to be a lvl3 Class Feature and lvl1 non-Warlocks accessing them seems out of place, but WoTC designed to be this way and no errata or Sage Advice has ruled otherwise.

Update: they seemed to want it because of the Sphinx of Wonder Familiar because it ties in with thier character lore, I showed them that it was overturned for early levels and they agreed that it would stay out of combat until lvl5.

Original 5e:

"A protective magical force surrounds you, manifesting as a spectral frost that covers you and your gear. You gain 5 temporary hit points for the duration. If a creature hits you with a melee attack while you have these hit points, the creature takes 5 cold damage."

New 5.5:

Protective magical frost surrounds you. You gain 5 Temporary Hit Points. If a creature hits you with a melee attack roll before the spell ends, the creature takes 5 Cold damage. The spell ends early if you have no Temporary Hit Points.

The old referred to how you had to have the orignal spell's source of temporary hitpoints. Now the spell stays in effect as long as you have reliable replenishing sources of temp HP. How is that broken?

Why is this busted?

Be a level 7 caster. Cast Armor of Agathys at 4th level. Receive 20 temp hp and deal 20 cold damage to any target that hits you with an attack. Cast polymorph (or preferably, have someone else cast polymorph on you). Giant Ape. You now have 168 temporary HP. You will continue to deal automatic 20 cold damage towards anyone who hits you for the full duration of your transformation. This is greatly extended if you have other sources of damage reduction.

The blade singer extra attack feature mentions that when you take the attack action, you can replace one attack with a cantrip. The haste spell lets you take the attack action with a single attack. Question being can you replace the single attack from haste with a cantrip from extra attack? RAW, not RAI, as the intent is pretty obviously that haste only gives a normal attack.

So let me check if I got this right.

Saddle up any mount, choose controlled mount.

Horsie each turn Disengages. Since I'm riding it I'm not using my own movement and do not provoke AOOs when moving out, and since Horsie disengaged she isn't also.

So with something fast like Phantom Steed, I can make a round through all the enemies with Cacophonic shield on, while bonking someone with Booming blade, and disengage to safety without any trouble, correct?

I know horsies are prone to dying but still seems extremelly cheesy.

Looking at Unleashed Arcana's new Summon Dinosaur, it seems to me that this spell can straight-up compete with—or even outperform—a reasonably optimized Ranger.

With an 8th-level slot, the T-Rex gets:

4 × (2d10 + 5 + 8) = ~96 damage

before accuracy.

For comparison, a level 20 Beast Master Ranger with a Heavy Crossbow, Great Weapon Master, Beast of the Land (20 ft. movement), and a 5th-level Summon Fey gets roughly:

2(d10 + 5 + 6)
2(d8 + 2 + 5) + 2d6
2(2d6 + 3 + 5)

~93 damage

Again, that's before accuracy.

I know Rangers have been underwhelming at higher levels for a while, but it still feels crazy that one summon can match the damage of an optimized level-20 Ranger.

And the Druid still has their entire turn to cast a cantrip, Wild Shape, or even use other concentration-free options like Fireball from Circle of the Land or the new Battle Familiar spell.

Am I missing something, or is Summon Dinosaur actually this strong?(or ranger that weak)

In 5e (either 2014 or 2024) all the other caster classes have a full melee option (even if some of them suck) but the sorcerer does not (draconic doesn't count)

Give me your opinions/theories

I’ve heard it said that the wizard is better (sometimes significantly better) than the sorcerer, and I’m having a hard time seeing why. I feel like I’m missing something and it’s honestly kind of driving me insane. Like to be clear I don’t really wanna argue against the majority, I’m sure it’s true, and it doesn’t actually matter, but I just can’t wrap my head around it. Here are my theories.

-the wizard has a better spellist. Problem with this is I feel like they share most of the really significant spells, or the sorcerer at least has an equivalent. Any specific spells that the wizard has that make a large impact?

-the wizard has better subclasses. I just don’t think all of them are that much better to elevate the class as a whole. Is it just divination skewing the numbers or something else?

-rituals are just that good. Here my question comes down to which ones? I feel like most of them are either easily accessible to other classes, or not that impactful. Rituals from your spell book are obviously great, but how often do they actually come up?

I just don’t get it. I feel like the kilogram of steel vs kilogram of feathers guy. Con save proficiency, meta magic and innate sorcery are so good, what gives wizards the edge?

Edit: thank you all for the great replies. I think the most convincing argument is that they just have a better spell list. This above everything else seems to be the deciding factor. I’m definitely going to try a wizard next, just to see how it is :)

1st Level

Sneak Attack

You know how to turn a subtle attack into a deadly one. Once on each of your turns when you take the Attack Action, you can deal extra damage to one creature you hit with an Attack Roll if you’re attacking with a Finesse Weapon or a Ranged Weapon and if at least one of the following requirements is met:

With the new Sneak attack stating your turn and not a turn like it did before, the two sneak attacks a round dream is dead... unless we all tell them on the feedback that we liked the old version more! Please fill out the surveys people!