21
If the opponent can use some sort of Contingent Celerity abuse to move before I can, then my trick isn't good enough.
Does any such trick for guaranteed first moves exist?
It cannot.
Any "go first" build would be able to be tested against itself: two cheeses enter, one cheese leaves. There are two possible outcomes:
both characters stand facing each ...
20
The answer to the question is, almost tautologically, “no.” If nothing else, a mirror match is always possible, and the game does not support simultaneous turns. Someone would have to go first, and whoever didn’t would not—and therefore break the guarantee. That said, we can narrow things down such that a mirror match is required—only someone who uses the ...
19
A permanent prismatic sphere
The defender can apply a permanency spell to the prismatic sphere spell so that an area—like the one near the center of the 20-square-by-20-square area—constantly emanates the sphere effect; this takes the defender a whole 3 turns (well within the 1 week allotted for preparation). The first three layers of the sphere effect deal ...
12
Druid 12/Cleric 5/Rogue 3 probably best but Druid 14/Rogue 3/Cleric 3 has some cool options
Firstly,
Prioritizing level 6 in druid with conjuring is powerful and advances all your goals.
Before I go into evaluating endgame potential of lvl 20 builds, I would argue your character's next big power spike will be druid level 6.
On Druid 5 you will gain ...
11
The highest average damage per round over three rounds that your tankard can deal is:
305.787
The Character
The character (let's call her Callie) to command the most dangerous tankard has the following classes:
Wizard 11------------------------------- (for alter self, conjure minor elementals, haste, magic jar, and Tenser's transformation)
Warlock (The ...
10
I believe you can beat the question's amount of background gold by going with the Inheritor background.
The most recent AL guidance I am aware of on the Inheritor background says this:
The Inheritor background requires additional guidance. You may roll on the random table provided
in the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide as normal, but if you decide to ...
10
It is simpler than it looks!
You need a Carpet of Flying and a Ring of Sustenance.
Sit on top of your carpet, fly up, and wait.
The Crab Swarm is an aquatic creature without the Amphibious subtype. It can't breath on land, and thus will die off by itself in a few turns.
This solution has a combined cost of 22.500gp, or half that if you're allowed to pay ...
10
Make a bottomless pit
For only 7,000gp you can buy a scroll of Curse Terrain, Supreme. This allows you to lay a Perilous Demesne, Grand onto the ground for a set a bottomless pits around the square.
Since the crabs will walk into it like lemmings jumping off a cliff, the following section of the hazard applies.
Other than its depth, the extraplanar ...
9
I would recommend Druid 12/Rogue 3/Cleric 5
If your goals are healing and buffing, then more levels in Cleric would allow you to gain access to their 3rd level spells, some of which are related to buffing and healing (i.e. beacon of hope and revivify, which are domain spells for you, and mass healing word). You will also gain more spell slots by taking more ...
8
With perfect rolls, arbitrarily much
We need a 1st level Wild Magic sorcerer with the Boon of Spell Mastery epic boon (DMG p. 232). We choose one of our sorcerer spells that deal damage for that boon, let's say chaos bolt.
Our loop is quite simple. We cast our chosen 1st level spell without expending a slot. This triggers Wild Magic surge, we roll a 1 and ...
7
The advantage of a Strength-based magus is that it avoids some of the disadvantages of a Dexterity-based magus. The disadvantage is that it also misses out on the advantages of a Dexterity-based magus. This is tautological, but I introduce things this way because Strength is the default, and aside from being the default and therefore not requiring any ...
6
The best I could come up with is 2,084 damage.
Use an Oathbow (1d8+3d6)
Drink a Potion of Giant Size from SKT (Oathbow now deals 3d8+9d6)
Use an Arrow of Slaying (+6d10)
Have Dexterity 20 then use Dex Tome (+6 dmg)
Paladin 3 - use Branding Smite (+2d6) also gives you Martial Prof to
use the Oathbow
Rogue Assassin 17 - get "Assassinate" "Death Strike" and ...
6
With spells only, 80d6, for an average of 280 or maximum of 480 damage.
With the Boon of High Magic, 2 levels of Fighter, 17 or more levels of Sorcerer or Wizard, and the spell Meteor Swarm.
Step 1: Cast Meteor Swarm on the target 40d6 damage.
Step 2: Use Action Surge (from your 2 levels of Fighter) to gain a second action.
Step 3: Cast Meteor Swarm ...
5
History
The cheater of Mystra is an early optimization build. Complete Divine was a new book at the time. Its web enhancement even more so. While it isn’t likely that anyone missed the significance of Divine Metamagic for even a moment, the cheater of Mystra was a fairly early foray into optimizing it. And then it tacked Initiate of Mystra and ...
5
Most Efficient Spell for AC:
Mage Armor, if you get attacked a lot over the course of the day.
Mirror Image, if you get attacked a lot over the course of a combat.
Shield, if you get attacked a lot over the course of a round.
A "hard" encounter for a group of five level 5 characters, with a 1:1 ratio of monster to PC, is about CR2 for each monster.
I'll ...
4
I went a bit of 'rogue' with my direction. Hah, see what I did there?
Anyway, it actually built better due to the roleplay of our game, but currently my character is 15 Arcane Trickster/2 Grave Cleric.
To review as a 18 Arcane Trickster/2 Grave Cleric:
Sacrifice : Capstone of rogue & 1d6 sneak attack damage.
Benefits:
1. Little extra healing, ...
4
Free object interaction is your friend
Each of your turns can include one so-called "free object interaction":
Your turn can include a variety of flourishes that require neither your action nor your move.
[...]
You can also interact with one object or feature of the environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you ...
3
I always like to see what I can come up with solo, with no outside help, in one round... Here goes:
I can do 3 lines with sunbeam in one turn.
Lvl 3 Sorcerer, for the Quicken Spell metamagic
Lvl 2 fighter, for Action Surge
Lvl 15 wizard, to be able to cast sunbeam
Procedure:
Quickened spell to cast sunbeam as a bonus action (1)
Action per turn to ...
3
Divine prestige classes are, for the most part, less stellar than arcane ones. Incantatrix and initiate of the sevenfold veil have no competition among the prestige classes available to clerics, and druids rarely want to multiclass at all since almost nothing advances everything they have going on.1
For the most part, a good cleric prestige class is one ...
2
Bugbear +2d6 sneak
Feat: heavy weapon master +10
Lv 2 cleric, grave domain x2 all damage
Lv 2 Paladin smite 5d8
Lv 3 Rogue assassin, 2d6 dam, auto crit
Lv 3 Fighter surge, +1d8 superiority
Lv 10 Bard, whisper college psychic blade, 5d6 dam and secrets for banishing smite 5d10
Action: path to the grave curse opponents gets vulnerability to all damage. (...
1
The Thlot Plickens... highcough!
The first thing is to think directly on the profit rather than the original investment of the 60gp. That original investment is a given. Even if you get this back by incurring no losses, to sustain this investment in the tavern over time, you will need to keep reinvesting the 60gp each time. It becomes a rolling re-...
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