So this veteran player is willing to step back and allow others to get the spotlight, could have taken a character-nerfing multiclass just to cover party gaps, and is potentially going to willingly take part in an encounter that is built to break his character? Sounds like a God-damn unicorn to me
That unicorn is me with my druid. The others have no idea how to make decisions on where to go or what to do so my druid kind of guides them along. I take cues from the DM and make it seem like the group is deciding what to do. xD
I'm guessing it's more likely the DM and Dr. Strange or whatever this character is don't get the mechanics, the game is designed to prevent this situation.
This sounds like the GM/Player are misunderstanding multiclassing somehow. Or the other players really arent using their own characters to full effect.
It's hard to say without knowing what everyone is playing and how they play. I just get the impression that the veteran, having more play experience, just knows how to play his class(es) more effectively. And having him change his character would be pointless.
Dave un-throws out the start of the solution at 08:10. Let the player sit his character to one side for a session. Let him run a single class character for a session. Brakes off. Let the player show them how it is supposed to be done. Embarrass them. Sounds like this player might even be able to do it with a handicap of minus 1 or 2 levels... Then sit the players down and work through their limitations. *Then* follow up with the great story/dick move of playing up the "Renowned" aspect and "demonstrate" all over the "overpowered" character. Of course, there's a limit to how much you can educate players who insist on acting like children.. one thing that's not covered is whether the other players _are_ children
We'll bounce over to your forums for more details, but from the short description it sounds like a player cleverly navigated an encounter by using all of his character resources at once. This is clearly not a mechanically optimized build, but you can definitely build some potent gamebreakers into it, especially if the combat circumstances are in his favor. When a PC steps up and does something awesome, a good player cheers their compatriot on, rather than being threatened by it. Finding a gem of a player like this should be an exciting learning experience that many players never get, rather than a threat to their egos. Resenting the success of a compatriot isn't really good player behavior. But if the group decides to limit his creativity and he (likely and rightfully) drifts politely away from your table, point him our way. He's sounds like the perfect player.
Here is how the Warlock and sorcerer character functions. They quicken their Eldritch Blast which at tenth level is 2 attacks. They then cast it again. Each attack with Eldritch Blast Deals 1D10 + cha mod damage plus most likely 10 ft knock back, and 1D6 damage per hit if they also have hex up. When the character uses this two times they then use their warlock slots which are 2nd level to gain more sorcery points. If the character is main focused in charisma this can add up pretty nasty like. At level 11 he gets a third attack with each casting.
At sorc. 4th you have 7 sorc points max. That means you can use that blast combo twice. At 4the lvl warlock you get two spell slots if you cast hex ever that only leaves one to turn into sorcery points. Dm said it revolves around dissonant whisper too. This is what he's doing. Hex on enemy, quicken dissonant whispers and then twin eldritch blast. That puts out 3d6 +1d6 for whispers and 4d10+4d6+4×cha bonus. That's a lot of damage per round for the price. See the dms issue now. Lots of solution to counter. I can counter with a 3rd lil bard or wiz. Familiar + invisibility +silence. This character lacks the magical abilities too counter most 10lvl straight casters cause he focused on a one trick damage combo.
MasterfulPaladin True, but you can quicken it. At lvl 11 -> 9 Divine Soul Sorcerer(Feats: War Caster, CHA up to 18), 2 Hexblade Warlock: Including Hex, Hexblades Curse and Agonizing Blast thats 2x(3d10 + 3d6 + 3x4 +3x4) = around 72dmg/Round on average if everything hits, plus Crits on 19/20. If you wanna go full nuke, you drop the Hex for Animate Objects (throw 10 ballbearings at your enemy and go "Kill that!") for another 10d4+40/round and pick Protector Aasimar for another 11dmg/round thanks to Radiant Soul for good measure. All in all, thats around 125 dmg/round for 4 rounds in a row. Additionaly, you can fill your other spellslots with spells like Absorb Elements (if an high-dmg spell should hit you, even though - if push comes to shove - you can add 2d4 to one saving throw per short rest thanks to "Favored by the Gods"), Sanctuary, Aid, Revivify and Cure Wounds(with "Empowered Healing" if needed) for keeping you and your party alive. At lvl 13, you can even Twin-Cast Heal. At the same time, the Hexblade subclass gives you prof. in Medium Armor and Shields for a relatively high Caster-AC. Yes, this guy could use teammates like a Protector-Fighter with a shield and the Sentinel Feat to compensate for the SorLocks rather poor HP-pool(although, the lack in HP can be optimized by casting Aid before venturing out). Or a Rogue to scout dungeons. Or a Cleric if he gets Feebleminded. But its not hard to see that they will probably feel like "extras" to his "leading character" in the adventure.
Lots of easy-ish solutions since the sorlock is a one-trick pony. - if the character doesn't have spell sniper give the enemies great cover - have them fight in a very narrow twisted tunnels rather than big open arenas so getting a visual on the enemies is challenge. - use enemies that can burrow or ambush so your long-distance sorlock finds themselves immediately surrounded by enemies - add enemies that do lots of ranged AoE attacks and/or apply various conditions (charmed, frightened, paralyzed) or that grapple on attack (good luck with those dissonant whispers when a giant croc has got their jaws around you). - use large numbers of fast moving enemies that work together rather than individuals that can get picked off by the sorlock. And the best solutions: - give the other characters really awesome magic weapons/items so they rival the Blast+Hex for damage output then crank the difficulty. If necessary make them only attunable by specific classes/races so the sorlock can't use them. - add in tons of non-combat and non-social challenges that the sorlock's going to suck at that feel just as dangerous/important as the combat encounters - e.g. crossing a river of lava, climbing a really high cliff. Or put in "puzzle" combats where no matter how many enemies the sorlock blasts out of existence more keep coming.
@@agilemind6241 The Sorlock can have crazy single target DPR with the combination of hex, hexblade curse and quickening eldritch blast. I've been at tables where the sorlock is doing 80+ damage per round at level 11. If someone in your party casts haste on you it gets even more crazy, 120+ damage. If you don't want to use hex you can cast darkness on yourself and with elvish accuracy spam crit your EB. Combined with taking an Elf you can take 4 short rests at the end of your long rest to create more spell slots. The problem is this only works great on a single strong target, if you get rushed by 30 kobolds he cannot so much.
I offered advice to some players about how to optimize their characters once. They were simply not interested. When my life cleric soloed an end of arc encounter while repeatedly using Healing Word to keep the party up as they fell turn after turn they looked at me with a surprised pikachu face.
Thanks Nerdarchy! I like the solution of using the Archmage to shut him down. Maybe even adding some Counterspell into the BBEG just to tie it all together. We did sit down with the other players - I think part of the issue is that we have a veteran optimizer sitting with a bunch of newer players less interested in going the optimized route. We have: - Dwarf Barbarian (Berzerker) dual wielding axes - Half Elf Paladin (Ancients) sword'n'board Protection - Halfling Rogue (Assassin) - Human Cleric (War) war hammer - High Elf Wizard (Necromancy) As for what the Warlock does: cantrips cantrips cantrips, with Warcaster and Quicken Spell. In the moments that sort of "triggered" all this, he either 2x Eldritch Blast (regular + Quickened) or Quickened Dissonant Whispers, opportunity Booming Blade (Warcaster - this also triggers the extra 3d8 for moving) then standard action Eldritch Blast. That's a Lvl1 Spell + 2 cantrips + 2 sorcery points to do something like 3D6+4D8+2D10+Dex+2*Cha +Hex(3D6). The rest of his spells are mostly meant for out-of-combat and social stuff; Charm, Disguise Self, things like that, and his second Metamagic option is Subtle Spell, so that when he's actively "facing" he can play lots of mind games. And for the rest of you - yeah, it's the best table I've had in a long time (maybe ever). It's the remains of a defunct group, a new player, and then my DMing and my friend actually plays the Warlock.
Only problem I could see with the character is a misunderstanding of multiclassing. What if the character has slots like a 10th level full caster that regens on short rests and is 10th in 3 classes. That would be op. I had to help a player once understand this is not how multclassing casters work.
It's possible they were playing a Coffeelock with those sorcerer and warlock levels and tomb pact which might have seemed pretty strong and the sorcery point limitation Nerdarchy points out wouldn't have been applicable. Coffeelocks can really burn sorcery points most rounds. Though the bard levels are weird, possible that it was just some flavor levels and a deliberate nerf in response to the other player's feelings about their character and chose bard to have some themes and team support to help them feel better with their characters.
Another option: Throw in a couple more magic items that are great for the other players, then if need be adjust the CR of your combats upwards. This ought to challenge everyone together.
It sounds like he is Quickening Eldritch Blast (which scales with over all level) and is using Hex. He is also trading the Warlock spell slots for spell points every short rest, which is near limitless supply of spell points. Anti Magic Shell hard shuts this build down. Also weak against multiple targets.
This is a DM problem. They are planning for mechanics rather than role play. The other players don't have their "shine" moments. Make a stealth adventure. Make a health-based trap or team-based trap. Have the characters get separated. Have an NPC fall in love with another character. They talked about shutting him down. Why not boost up the other players?
if the party felt like he was a detriment to the party because he was too powerful it's because you haven't given them the fear. early levels get scary when ghouls and rogues team up. high level games have even crazier monster options. make sure the fights are interesting and scary and every resource gets appreciated.
After typing a long and ranty post, i think i can summarize it with one phrase that many players have heard time and time again: "It's my turn now? Sooo... what can do?"
On my character sheets I make a list of actions, bonus actions, and reactions, and put in the relevant die rolls w/ modifiers, if something can be activated, etc... It works great because like with my Monk, if I do something other than the Attack action, I can quickly look at my list of bonus actions to see if I can do anything quickly without having to read through all of my class abilities' full texts. Turns go much faster! I'm not a new player but it still helps me with speed, and for new players it really helps them focus down on what they want to do. Some people are just completely indecisive, but that can be helped too...
scabbynacker I realize this is 8 months ago, but I wanted to let you know that I think this is a great idea and I'm going to use it for my husband and his friends who are new players
Also the guy with the good character has played the way he is supposed to, as a team member. And Dave is right, any character he makes, based on how the group seems to work, he will make a character that can obliterate everyone else's.
Level 2 Bard, Level 4 Warlock, Level 4 Sorcerer. Spell slots: 1st = 4 2nd = 3 3rd = 3 Warlock gives an extra 2 2nd level Spell slots. Spells known: 5 from Warlock 5 from Sorcerer 5 from Bard 10 Cantrips (3 + 5 + 2) He would also have 8 extra spells from the Expanded Spell list he gets from whatever pact he chose. Under multi-classing it says: Pact Magie. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain fram the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know. The character would have 23 spells at level 10, with 12 spell slots to burn through with Flexible Casting. Because of the above rule, he can cast his Warlock spells using his 3rd level slots, and after taking a short rest he gets his two 2nd level Warlock spell slots back, which can be converted to 2 sorcery points each before taking the rest. Others in the comments have already talked about the combos.
Yeah you're right. Only his two 2nd level slots would recharge from a short rest. He can still devour those two spell slots for 2 sorcery points each though before taking a short rest.
Is this player so clever as to "out play" the others? Are the other players so new as to be confused? Is the "offending" player the only one engaged? Are the other characters poorly built? Is the DM offering preferential treatment? Because as it sounds, the other players just need to step up and get engaged. A single-class full caster should be rocking this table. A Rogue's Sneak Attack should almost one-shot some foes. This sounds less like a GM issue, or even a single player issue. This sounds like a rest-of-the-table issue where other players just need to engage more. Seriously guys, whomever you are, the game (most of the time) is only as good as YOU make it. Get in there. Mix it up. Take risks. If you feel you're being outshined, "shine louder" (despite the weird concept of loud light). The GM, for his point, needs perhaps to create plot or encounter moments designed to make the other players more integral. Otherwise, if this M/C continues to outshine others, he does so because he's the only one engaged or being engaged.
Ok so correct me if I am wrong but as a sorc he can canabalize his Warlock slots then get a short rest to get those slots back with out losing the sorcerer points. allowing for a lot of low level spell casting. Which I didnt think was THAT bad there are a lot of good spells that dont "scale" but also are still good at every level..... or thats my thought so far.....
I once had a friend who was playing an arcane trickster rogue, and he decided to scout ahead into an orc camp. He assassinated 4 orcs that were awake, put 16 orcs to sleep, slowly walked around the table and split each ones throat, and basically did the dungeon by himself, while me and 3 other players just spent half an hour watching him absolutely murder EVERYTHING. IT. WAS. MAGNIFICENT.
Really impossible to answer without knowing what the other characters are, and how experienced the other players are. There shouldn't be that much disparity unless the other players are really fresh. This character should be fairly squishy hp and ac wise. Some NPC tanks might be able to pound him down pretty quickly. Creatures that are resistant or immune to mind-control spells should be able to make easy work of him. A newfangled wood elf ranger with a decent AC that can sneak up on him will be making saves vs. charm at advantage, will force him to make cantrip attacks at disadvantage, and should be able to make mincemeat of him with multiattack, hunter's mark, and other whistles and bells in 2-3 rounds tops.
warlock is arguably the best class to multiclass in, as it's primary means of dealing damage, Eldritch blast, only requires one invocation to be better damage than a longsword wielding fighter, then as eldritch blast scales with character level, you lose almost no combat effectivness as opposed to straight warlock, alowing room for whatever crazy class combinations you want, I hear fiend pact bladelock/ eldritch knights are fun
He is capable of funneling Warlock Spell slots into Sorcery Points, and have a ton of slots on short rests. Warlock is a powerful class to multiclass with as any spell caster and a lot of strong options as non-full casters. So what im thinking is that this guy is funneling all of his warlock slots into sorcery points, and using points for twinning hex (which you can use any spell slots you have for any spells you know) and just blasting them with Eldritch Blast, and using his Inspirations to make other characters work better. His current build is very strong despite not being able to cast higher than 2nd level spells (but can cast spells at 3rd level).
We have a Warlock who does at level 4 on average 20-30 dmg per round and has the same hit points as two of our fighters. The other characters do in general maybe 10 dmg per round(ranger, fighters, rogue) and they hit insanely worse. I always wonder how a lv 4 warlock can triple the dmg of almost any other character while being relatively tanky at the same time (33hp 16 ac - same as one of our fighters)
By the sounds of things, a Null Magic zone would also illustrate the weakness of a multicaster. But this is like extinguishing the fire, but not stopping it from happening again. By 10th level people should have a decent handle on how their characters act, ever consider just sitting down with the players and going over alternative choices? It will probably put a bad taste in a lot of mouths, but by expanding how they view things it might improve player cohesion. Also, not sure if anyone pointed it out but I think I figured out the Archmage has spell resistance. He is an Abjurer. They get an ability of Spell Resistance.
Try adjusting the pacing, more encounters per rest will means he'll need to ration his sorcery points. Also more mooks, more low level monsters give players something to do, negates unbalance damage output, and will force him to either restrain from using metamagic or wear him down. Also they groups can use more sophisticated tactics and force the players to act as a team. Remember characters have disadvantage on ranged attack spells like Eldritch Blast while in melee. Also Hex, though powerful, is a concentration spell so make sure he's making those checks. Remember once charm or friends end the target realizes what happened so its a short term solution that can lead to problems down the line. Its reasonable for your villains to setup safeguards against such tricks after its happened once or twice and if they're using it on NPCs will give them a realy bad reputation really quickly. Use this to set up morally ambiguous situations where they're interacting with villagers or the town watch rather then straight villains. Consider something like a thieves guild where it's better for them to... um... bluff their way through honestly rather then use magic or risk making powerful enemies. You can balance things out a bit with magic items... by level 12 you're party should have a couple decent weapons. Its always seemed to me that the way the game is set up blasty characters should get the defensive items and stabby characters should get offensive ones. He sounds like he's focused on dealing damage and I'm betting he is fairly squishy. I've been playing a fighter built to be a body guard type and it doesn't bother me that much that I'm not dishing out as much pain as someone else because I know they can't take as much punishment as me. It is important to make sure they know their abilities... I may not be optimized to damage but I can still dish out enough to rival a spell caster if I want to thanks to feinting attack and action surge. I don't know if they have a fighter but if so make sure they know that once per short rest they can make six attacks.
Here's my personal favorite 'I'm going to solo this campaign' build. It comes online at level 8, but ~level 6 is when it is able to be a major threat. However, even before then, the build maximizes action economy usage and with the combination of GWF + War Cleric bonuses can tear through early stuff before it has its 'core' spells and abilities, as well as including hefty AC with the Defensive Fighting Style + best heavy armor you can get at the time. 1 level in Fighter (for Con saving throws, also a better level 1 start for lower level-starting campaigns than Cleric), 5 levels in Cleric, 2 more levels in Fighter. War Cleric, Eldritch Knight. Variant Human. Warcaster is the only mandatory feat, taking it at level 4 of Cleric (level 5 overall). For your Variant Human feat, I take GWF for the early level strength and the synergy with War Cleric, but a shield + sword build and, say, Lucky is fine. Defense Fighting Style. Your primary goals of the build are to hit level 5 Cleric, ie. level 6 overall for Spirit Guardians, and level 8 for Eldritch Knight to get the Shield spell. Finally, it's in no way required, but level 10 for extra attack from Fighter. Full plate, two handed weapon (or one handed + shield if you really want to make sure you don't die, getting the most usage of Spirit Guardians in the process, but I use two handed just because of GWF). Your first turn of combat will usually be Action Surging to use Spirit Guardians, attack action, War Cleric bonus attack. Your second turn of combat will be attack action + Spiritual Weapon, unless you have a reason to use another War Cleric bonus attack (usually you save them for rounds when you really need the burst). With this, every turn, you have Spirit Guardians aoe + slowing, a normal attack (with potential GWF and War Cleric +10 chance to hit if you know your attack will miss) and Spiritual weapon to all deal consistent dps without expending too many resources over an encounter. With Warcaster, at least 16 Con, and Fighter's Con saving throws, when you take damage you will never be at any real risk of losing your Spirit Guardians, making you a consistent threat even during turns you're healing yourself, as well as preventing enemies from fleeing due to reduced movement. However, on turns when you don't really want to get hit, you have the Shield spell as a reaction. You save your level 1 slots for Shield, level 2 slots for Spiritual Weapon, and level 3 slots for Spirit Guardians,. If your GM allows, feel free to use level 2 slots for Shield as well even if it doesn't work RAW (since Shield has no higher level bonus). You also have usage of healing spells for the turns when you feel you need it, and you'll still be dealing damage with Spirit Guardians (guaranteed damage) + Spiritual Weapon (bonus action attack even if you spend the turn doing other stuff). Given your Con, Fighter start and not awful Cleric hp gain, you'll be quite tanky, especially with Heavy Armor. Additionally, since you have Guidance, you can potentially abuse it constantly for initiative, among other skill checks, but that's entirely up to how you feel as a player and whether you want to abuse it. Also, gaining Find Familiar from Eldritch Knight allows for nice help actions and other uses, as well as being able to cast touch-range healing spells on allies at a distance (via keeping your familiar with them). It also includes using Guidance on distanced allies. In short, the build uses the action economy excellently, is basically immortal in combat, has great skill usage with both Guidance and the help action, is a constant threat in combat even if he decides lay down on the floor and sleep, and uses very minimal spell slots to their maximum effect. Even if the rest of your party dies to the Armageddon itself, this character will still be alive, having just woken up from his shield-protected nap, only to proceed to the rest of the pilgrimage on his own. The only real threats are campaigns involving heavy water (as you have Heavy Armor, but you can technically help action + Guidance to negate your disadvantage to swim, and strong Athletics skills by default) and Wisdom saving throws, but even then, most of them aren't super life threatening. By the time you reach the higher levels where they are, you'll probably have a third feat where I'd throw in either Lucky for global safety, Resilient for Wisdom saves, or Tough if the GM has really upped the encounters with far stronger enemies just to break your insane, fortress-like defense. A minor thing, but you also get the whole Eldritch Knight bonding thing, so you're not at risk of losing your weapon and you can additionally keep something like, say, a Javelin for the very few times when you can't reach someone in close range, allowing for repeated use. So help you if you find a magical weapon, but I made this character with the assumption you'd never find any. Don't want to rely on things outside of guaranteed stuff you can put in the build. Finally, I should note that I've only ever used this character twice - once when I first created it and it worked to an absolutely insane degree, and I felt bad because it completely overshadowed the other players even though I didn't think it'd do that well without the level 5 extra attack of most classes (it out-dpsed that by a long shot, by the way), and I did my best to stop hogging the spotlight, and another time with a GM who treated the game as a guaranteed death campaign. Needless to say I never died, even when he started trying to use 'rocks fall, everyone dies' traps. I didn't really want to put this build anywhere because I don't want to risk seeing others run this it, as I've never seen anyone make anything even remotely close to it - but, hey, felt like sharing it since you guys do great videos.
i remember the first campaign i played, where i wasnt really abnormally strong, but everyone else had buildt their characters sub-optimally which made me stronger by comparison. it got really frustrating after a while to constantly be called OP, it happened in basically every encounter, and often it was due to pure luck or spells that were simply flashy and nothing more. by now ive basically become the group expert in character builds, and i still occasionally cant help but point out how my stats were fairly easy to produce equivalents of.
We totally don't know enough to judge fairly. The center of the question imo is: communication. Communication between the DM and the players to put the game in a space that would make everyone happy altogether: planning scenarios that are centered on dynamics appealing to each of them, rotating through different ones if they prefer different things/a variety of them (door/monster/treasure is far from being the most enjoyable for me as an ex, i'd be bored to death after 3 sessions if there's only hack/slash/loot) Communication from the players if they become tired of not being able to get a space under the sun from time to time. They should not hesitate to tell the DM what they feel about it. After the game ended, head-to-head with the DM and not in the middle of the group, and talking about this and how that could be done as responsible adults. Communication from the DM if he sees something is amiss between its players, as a DM you don't want those things to linger, settling them one way or another is a key for not letting the whole roleplaying fall apart on the mid-term. I'd be hard-pressed to make any assumption on what's going wrong in this particular case. I've changed my Pathfinder char once because after 2 sessions i felt not aligned with how i was able to play it compared to the other members of the party, and not being on the same note kinda grinds the pleasure on both side i guess. It wasn't related to power level or anything intense, but it's important to play the same game, and not only in the same game.
Checking this video out in 2020, I would argue it's obviously a situation of one player 'knowing what they are doing' and making the most out of their spells and abilities
Had a similar thing way back as a player, my DM would separate the party so the OP character had to clear one objective solo while everyone else cleared the main objective. Meet in the middle for the boss fight.
So, my intuition is that the GM is using a lot of monsters with resistances and the other players either don't have the tools to overcome the resistances or aren't changing their spells/attacks to overcome the resistances. You have to remember that Eldritch Blast is THE move for the Warlock, and with the Hex-Blast-Agaonizing Combo coming online early, this will put other people to shame. Plus, with using Dissonant Whispers it sounds like he is being smart about keeping enemies away from him, which means he's also moving and repositioning each round (and I suspect maximizing all of his actions each round). A lot of assumptions, but I can easily see his build performing super well in all 3 pillars of gameplay.
Based on set up [ posted before more info was stated ] . It's ether . A ) The DM's game ether is run in a fashion that favors the character . Or B ) The one player is very skilled and the other players are not so much .
I find that newer players tend to look in the PHB to find what they can do. Experienced players know to describe what they want to happen using the scene's environment, the situation with NPC's as well as their own character's skills and features. I think that if we were to watch this game live, you would find that whenever the veteran player's turn comes up, he is more active in creating the scene he wants while the newer players are just using their attack/cast options and letting things play out kind of like a board game. My group jokingly refers to experienced play as "blah, blah, blah...I win." One possible route to go is to exploit the "but..." in the phrase "Great GM's say yes, but..." Since the veteran player is outplaying the rest of the table, make the "but..." for him more complex and challenging. Characters are there to suffer, not just win and it's not hard, even for a good player, to talk themselves into a pit of misery only the party as a whole can escape. The goal is to make the entire table think of creative solutions to their encounters instead of just one person.
I completely disagree with the "Characters are there to suffer". This game is about having fun while telling a story, if people only care about mechanics like this is some sort of raid on a MMORPG, then they are the ones in the wrong.
Well, the game is about players having fun. Fun in a game usually means overcoming challenges. The nature of challenge for a fictional character is almost always some form of suffering, even if it's something simple like fear of getting hit by an arrow.
The most common 5e mistake is computing level of spells known/prepared same as level of spell slots. It trips up new GMs all the time, which is likely the case here.
Depending on the multiclass, a good combo can outshine almost any straight up class in levels between 4-15. As a power-player, I try to find cool and fun class and race combos. The one thing I'm unlucky is none of the campaigns I have played, has gone higher than level 6.
The diffrence may simply be that the player is a veteran player. A veteran, knows what power work together, sized up the party and is playing a key role. Also he is likely more assertive and asking more from the dm. A new player might not know to push and ask for more. Can I do this is a powerful ability. I know when I play, I am always among the most effective characters.
Eldritch blast + CHA + Hex * 2 (from the quicken spell). let me calculate that for you. 4d10+20+4d6. that is a minimum DPR of 28 and a maximum DPR of 84. He's had roughly that DPR since warlock3/sorcerer3. You're completely missing the point if you're focusing on spell slots. Spell slots are used solely to fuel sorcery point in this build. When this player levels up Bard to get expertise he'll dominate social situations with his massive +13 in social skills. This build is incredibly strong, and is only limited by the maximum amount of sorcery points you can have at a time. At 4 sorc that only allows for two quicken spells before you have to spend a bonus action converting slots, which regenerate on a short rest thanks to warlock.
I always have this issue with bards. At a certain point they can heal as well as the cleric, blast as well as the wizard, fight as well as the fighter, and take things as well as the rogue.
I was playing an eladrin barbarian divine soul sorcerer in a curse of strahd campaign. I was doing more damage, on average per combat, then the monk and the great weapon master, combined. The problem for them was that they did not know how to speck their characters right. And, they missed more times then they hit. When they hit, they did more damage then I did. I tried helping them but al I got for trying, is: "you do your character and I will do mine." I spent more time healing them then should have been necessary, and I lost track of how many times I had to step into melee range to deal with something
for multiclassing not being more powerful then a single class. fighter champion 11, oathbraker paladin 9. get to add your cha mod to damage with aura of hate, smite 3 times around, and have action surge to drop double the dice critting more often with 2 fighting styles, great weapon master and fighting, wielding that greatsword. and still not useless in combat after your smites are up because you can still attack 3 times per turn, with a potentially magic weapon. alternatively, go eldritch knight instead of champion to crit less but have more spell slots to smite with, plus action surge and a weapon bond.
i think that strictly martial multiclasses, or casters that dip into a martial multiclass hold up much better than mixing casting classes because of the limited level of spells, though you may have some higher level slots. but i love multiclasses that are for character reasons
I find a multiclass char may be stronger in the mid game but lacks the power later in campaigns. I did however recently do a 1 shot where I played a Cleric 5 (life)/ Sorc 5 (draconic) and was a pure support class. We fought a newly born Lich and I basically spent all my higher spell slots to counterspell and my sorcery points and lower level spells were for healing and twin spells. I was rolling well with Con saves and was able to maintain my Beacon of Hope for a whole minute but the party basically walked away full health and not a scratch. To be honest I wasn't playing a character but a build for this game so I did min/max it a bit. Until you hit 10 the build would be very lackluster and afterwards it would still be sub par, it was just lucky that the boss was a caster.
Trouble with the archmage counter thing is that the player is a sorcerer. Twinned, Quickened and Subtle are all ways to get around counterspelling since countering uses your reaction. Twinned - counter will have to choose one or the other Quickened - spell + cantrip. Counter one Subtle - can’t counter what you don’t see coming.
Twinned allows 1 spell to target 2 creatures. So 1 counterspell would still stop it. But once a twinned buff or debuff is cast, youd need 2 dispel magics to stop it.
I would assume he's going hex, cast it once a day and then keep concentration up, using a bonus action to apply it to another target whenever you run into them, eldritch blast (with repelling blast and agonising blast), and doubling eldritch blast a turn using quickened metamagic. It can put out an absolutely absurd amount of single target damage. The blast is hitting at least twice each cast, maybe 3 at that level, and each hit will be doing 1d10+1d6(Hex)+charisma modifier, so at least 4d10+4d6+(4)Charisma modifier, and pushing that target 40 foot away from himself. At level 11 he's going to be doing 6d10+6d6+(6) Charisma modifier, probably around 130 max damage a round, averaging about 65 damage and pushing that target 60 foot away.
After Tasha's Cauldron came out you can even build a pure sorc build with EB and hex once a day. All you need is magic initiate and the new eldritch adept feat. Variant human, this comes online at level 4 any other race without a beginning feat at 8. With this build you get to keep full sorc spell progression and do excellent single target damage with the sorc class. Take Mind Sliver to cast with a quickened control spell to aid in dc difficulty. It's a beautiful mix of form and function in a controller/blaster chassis. ( I know the origional post was pre Tasha's, I just watched this video and it goes to illustrate how good this combo has gotten without even the need to multiclass.)
Eldritch Blast (1-4 hits @ d10) + Hex (adds a d6 per hit) + Agonizing Blast invocation (+CHA mod per hit) which can be cast twice per turn with Quickened Spell for 2 sorcery points while exchanging his spell slots for more sorcery points is what I'm guessing this guy is doing. Possibly push targets around with the Repelling Blast invocation. It is also possible to eliminate disadvantage in melee if he took the Crossbow Expert feat. Just that is enough to surpass the damage capabilities of a fighter at any level. Plus, he's also getting utility spells and is probably going for bard's magical secrets. No wonder the other players are feeling underpowered. He could still be shut down, but it will require quite the effort on the DM's part which won't be very fun in the end. The way I see it, either the other players need to come up with similarly powered characters (possibly with some DM assistance) or he needs to go in a different direction.
+ROFLGoblin You can also achieve the same thing with the Close Quarters Shooter fighting style from Unearth Arcana: Light, Dark, Underdark! which comes with additional benefits, but requires multiclassing into either fighter, paladin or ranger.
There is always the option to, as I have done in some campaigns i have ran is to scale the damage with the h.p. (E.g. at 3/4 hp they do 3/4 damage and add 1 ac to their attack, 1/2 hp 1/2 damage 2 ac to attack 1/4 hp 1/4 damage and 3 to ac on attack).
The whole counterspell thing reminds me of what happened in a game I was playing. I have a rep among my group for being an expert, and being able to make amazingly powerful characters, partly deserved but mostly just because I introduced literally all of them to rpgs, and as such one of the first times one of them ran a game and had me in it, the second game actually, he did that kinda shit for EVERY encounter. Found out what was on my sheet, and set things up so every single encounter the spells at my disposal were useless for one reason or another. I was PISSED. TLDR: Great to do on occassion, but back to back to back to back is not.
When the dice are flowing anyone can look good, maybe that's what the deal has been, this guy has just been doing amazing as far as dice rolls go. I mean hell, my group of 2nd level characters nutted up and fought a hydra, and just destroyed it, they rolled great, and the hydra rolled terrible almost every single turn.
i dont like suddenly making the character lv 20 but for this example ill do it: lv 10 dragon sorc and lv 10 lets say fiend warlock just to get some defence stuff from there. as a lv 10 sorc u have `10 sorc points + what ever points u convert from slotts. at lv 20 your blast is doing 1d10+5 ( not going to assume its lower) per hit with 4 times to use it. as a sorc u can quicken spell and cast again the blast for a extra 4 blasts. cast darkness on self to get advantage on your attacks and disadvantage to there attacks if they cannot see though magic darkness. and cast eldritch blast with quicken spell meta magic (assuming u took devils sight invocation). next turn just double eldritch blast with quicken spell using sorc points and convert your existing sorc level spell slots back into sorc points when needed. you are doing between 0-120 force dgm per turn (you might miss all attacks) and if you count in other invocations and feats you can extend at to 600 ft pushing back your target as well. while thanks to fiendish resistance you take half dgm from piercing attacks that have to hit you first as well while getting temp hit points. if you change darkness to hex you get a extra 32 dgm to your max. but thats just all numbers on what you can do with that type of build and is just boring saying dnd when you do all this stuff. ALSO with distance meta magic you can extend you range to 1200 ft.
I think certain multclasses are broken but normally from what I have seen if you multiclass into more then one other class it can get really messy and the build will fall short. Not saying you can't get a good build out of more then two classes but it's a lot harder.
Tell the GM to build his encounters more tactically, launch creatures in waves, have the creatures use the environment, and have creatures with crowd control and a tank.
from the sound of things this guy isn't being a dick, at our table we have a player who practically out of the gate was a killing machine with proficiency and bonuses on bloody everything, his per round damage is significant and a bit scary, I didn't get jealous or upset about it though. I found it a good way to challenge my own character and did things to ensure I could be just as useful, besides our DM pitted the party against a spell caster way to high for us and I ended up being the last one standing thanks to my obscene amount of hit points
If I'm not mistaken MCing is an optional rule. I think I could make it a table rule of only MCing into one other class. I know that wouldn't help here since they are already 3 classes, but I think in general it would help even out the parties you DM. (maybe?)
Little late but the reason this doesn't really help is because the more multiclasses you do the weaker you are I'm a Bladelock4/Eldritch Warden(op'd Homebrew) 2 and the entire party(of phb characters) outperforms me because they understand how thier characters work which is the problem here
He has basically unlimited sorc points because he can burn his short-rest warlock slots for them. Betting he's Fiend pact and he has Scorching Ray. With Hex locked on he does 3d6 per ray with a 3rd level slot he throws 4 rays= avg 10.5 per ray= 42 if they all hit. He can do this as a bonus action with 3 sorc points. He can throw 2 eldrich blasts for 1d10 plus 1d6 (hex) plus 5 charisma. Thats 14 per ray. Max of 28. So that's 70 points of damage in one round without crits. You also have invisibility in case you want to roll twice for each attack. The Bard levels give him a persuasion check of +13. With guidance and advantage you've got a 30 on that check and you can give DISadvantage to someone with a bonus-action Hex. No save. Win every social encounter.
counterspell might not work if this character. my best guess is that he spams eldritch blast with the warlock invocations and quickens them with metamagic so he gets to cast 2 really strong cantrips per round.
If he's a time lock sorcerer he might be doing the combo for Infinite magic, but even then it's only second level spells and there is so many ways to make interesting encounters to challenge that. And he's letting the other players have there time to shine, I don't see what the issue is here
only stomp on a players face with their consent. i trew a CR 7 revanent at a lv 6 warlock who died in one round (it was faster then expected), but it was discussed beforehand as he wanted to play a different character for a bit, and i had a way of bringing him back but it would take some time while also fitting quite nicely in the story. it was a challenge he literally couldn't win, but we decided on that together. if you want to show of a player might not be as powerful as the rest of the party thinks just discuss fucking him over.
In any comparison of power, folks need to seriously look at what they are likely to be facing. A level 10 party could easily be facing a pair of frost giants (CR 8, 138hp, two +9 attacks, averaging 25 per hit). Twining second level spells isn't going to do much if anything nor are you going to be able to maintain that for long.
what about a cleric/warlock multi class like the one created by dawnforged that is the ultimate healer in yalls options would you rather just have a normal healer?
This veteran player has obviously made a character that's gonna be effective for a lower level game. He's got a ton of cantrip's and can recover almost everything during a short rest. Once he's 15 or so he won't be anywhere near as effective. One solution is to put things in his path with high saves against some / most of his spells and attacks. Fey and illusions are good things to put there, or put them in the underdark against the magic resistant dwarves. The gm also might simply not be putting in enough stuff to keep everyone occupied.
I DM'd for a bunch of noobies and one guy actually did his research when he created his character, I helped as best I could with helping everyone ..but even if I spoon fed ideas and spells to the characters they wouldn't really use them to their best ability. So they all thought this not even optimized ranger was doing everything when the reality was that they were doing nothing. It was sad.
This build is amazingly powerful it is like getting 10 action surges on a caster. Eldritch blast with hex is great. D10+D6+charisma. At level 6,11 & 17 you get an extra attack. Thats right 4 attacks. This makes him more powerful than an average character, and now comes the power. With sorcerers quicken meta magic he can cast it again doubling his damage. So now he does as much damage as 3 other characters combined. At level 17 you can do 8 D10+8 D6+40 damage EVERY turn. Be subtle, go on a quest aruond the class of a different player where they might come across great armor for a dwarf, or an amazing bow for the ranger. Build the others up, dont pull this dude down.
Multiclass is really good when you have class that work well together, my forge cleric/battlemaster character is like if jesus was wearing plate and killing every things.
mechanically the Archmage has Globe of invulnerability, making him immune to the Warlock's spells entirely if you need to bully the Warlock to showcase his weaknesses. but this sounds like a social problem, not a mechanical problem. the Warlock 4/ scorcerer 4/ Bard 2 combo has loads of utility low level stuff and if its a booklock he could have 12 or more cantrips so he has a thing he can do in most circumstances. i play something similar (booklock8 cleric 2 with magic initiate feat) and have loads of utility and around the table ive noticed that the more restrictive class players (the fighter Paladin and the monk) shine at fewer times than me or the wizard. so maybe there is a class distribution problem with the other players, or simply a lack of experience in the other players. this warlock being commented on seems a little bit weaksauce tbh. with the right Sorcerer archetype they gain access to the same spells (except that 2 level dip for hex) and could really lay down serious mechanical hurt more effectively than the three way split in the original (because Hex + up levelled magic missile or searing bolt is filth) but i think it is the vast utility and imagination of the guy that is making the newbies feel left behind. and thats hard to get around other than experience and encouraging them to try cool things. they just need to build confidence
I think i see what this guy is doing, twin hex give them each disadvantage on what ever their attack rolls are, then focus one of the hexed targets with spells using quicken spells eldritch blast to cast it twice for like 4 attacks or quicken spell eldritch blast and dissonant whispers.
Read the original post, helpfully placed below the video Original GM 911 Post- Oh, cool, thanks. The 911 is that I have a veteran player at my table who runs a really cool Warlock - great back story, slick playstyle, and very tight mechanically; DragSorc4/TomeLock4/LoreBard2(going to 12). He's a great person at the table too; despite his character being the only Cha-based class in the party, he doesn't automatically "face" every encounter, and despite being able to lay out the hurt with Eldritch Blast and Metamagic, he tends to just play the basic 1Spell/turn. He doesn't spam his Eldritch Blast. The other players are just salty.
Twice per long rest, takes two turns and not every blast hits. Level 6 Wizard can cast Fireball/Lightning Bolt twice per long rest and by hitting two targets with one of them they "do" 16d6 per cast. Level 12 Sorc casts twinned Disintegrates that does 20d6+80 (average 150) in one round. Boom! Headshot!
Well, they have Rage 2/long rest, but when even when they don't rage they have Unarmored Defense, Reckless Attack for at will Sneak Attack, Danger Sense of advantage on Dexterity saving throws, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Elusive, 9d6 Sneak Attack...lots of goodies. Assassinate on this build is amazing, especially if you go Half-Orc, because then you're getting double weapon damage on a crit too. If you start Barbarian to have higher hit points, etc, just grab Resilient (Dexterity) at some point with one of your many ASIs. And don't forget that you can use Finesse weapons with your Strength, so you can get your bonus Rage damage and take advantage of your Half-Orc's +2 STR. Another way to abuse this build is to go Mountain Dwarf for +2 STR and CON. I have a friend currently playing a Barbarian 2/Rogue 8 in one of our games and he's got a 24 AC (20 DEX and CON a shield and an Animated Shield) and he's our tank, he just dodges out of the way of everything, and it annoys the heck out of the DM, but it's a lot of fun to watch him play.
About the only way I can possibly see 'breaking' the game with the character mentioned here is if he's being allowed to spend many hours of short rests cashing out his warlock spell slots for 1st or 2nd level sorcerer / general spellcaster spell slots. That could break the expected action value economy if he's allowed to regularly load up with a dozen or so extra 1st level spell slots before an adventuring day. Barring those sorclock shenanigans, the penalties for that level of caster class division should let any standard sort of spellcaster have moments to shine. Mostly this sounds like an issue of newer players being envious of this guy's better understanding of the 'right' choices to make when it matters.
At lvl 10 with that build, he has like 13 cantrips, 3 bonus proficiencies, charisma synergy through the 3 classes, and probably enough 'lock to make the eldritch blast hit hard. He's probably gunning for the ritual magic through his tome as well. I'm not surprised he's extremely powerful in his group. Anyway, he already has most of the strongest components of his build, as the group moves from lvl 10-20 the other party members stand to gain more I think. For example, while he'll always have way more 0 level cantrips than his peers, this guy's never going to get any 8th or 9th level spells, and significantly less 5th/6th/7th slots, & many of his cantrips won't scale up well.
He's a swiss army knife, who looks super-capable compared to the daggers around him ...for now. But those daggers will grow up to be swords, and he'll grow up to be a modestly larger swiss army knife. If anything, his party should regard him as someone who's heavily covering utility, so they are more free to specialize.
I can see dipping a single level into Fighter, if I was running a Bladelock. Mostly just for the ability to wear better armor. Take the "Thirsty Blade" Invocation when you can, and you'll be able to run it as a competent gish.
Most fun I've ever had with pure Warlock was with eladrin from 4.0. Zipping around the map hitting enemies from all angles, running straight at enemy caster then instantly swapping places with the party tank...great fun. In 5.0 I'm playing a Sorlock and I have to say he's fairly op in the right situations. I wouldn't want to try soloing a campaign with him, but he's a definite asset to the party.
Sometimes a veteran player just knows how to operate. Not all vet players are good at teaching other players. Apparently this guy pulled his character in to allow the group to get in some damage. The DM could twink out the other players with a few items but increase the overall difficulty. Idk... as a new player when I saw an awesome player I literally took notes and asked for a better explanation after the game. A first level character can toss a jar filled with oil and marbles and use an ignite cantrip to set the oil ablaze and look like a hero. New players just don't think of shit like that. I personally think the other players need to up their game.
Just sounds to me that the veteran player knows the tools in his tool box and how to use them and even creatively. Role Playing - Think a "MacGyver" character instead of a "Terminator" Type
at least you sound fair I mean how does this sound, when I was playing a Summoner in Pathfinder my Eidolon and my spells together were so powerful (basically my Eidolon AC and HP made it tankier than our tank players monster based paladin and me being the only spellcaster...) my GM decided to keep throwing Anti magic field zones at my party shutting down both my spells and summon until we figured out how to turn it off...forcing my to use a crossbow and take a crossbow feat just so I could do SOMETHING ... sad part is I hit my Targets more than our party's ranger...) my group was compromised of a alchemist/gun slinger , a large naga paladin, and a tengu ranger and they got anoyed that my Summoner outclassed them (saying I kept trying to use magic to solve any issue) I don't get what I did wrong I'm a spellcaster I use magic to deal with things and I have to suffer because I'm basically a one man party?
This guy has made an amazing character... why should he be put down or told change it, when it sounds like the other people dont have great builds or bad luck with dice. Good job on him for pushing the bounds of a normal character and going for something excitingly new.
My current group's tank has 3 attacks at level 5 durgar battlerager and hits for around 1d4+17 on his final strike... I haven't heard one complaint from any of my other players. Not, one.
I once had a friend who was playing an arcane trickster rogue, and he decided to scout ahead into an orc camp. He assassinated 4 orcs that were awake, put 16 orcs to sleep, slowly walked around the table and split each ones throat, and basically did the dungeon by himself, while me and 3 other players just spent half an hour watching him absolutely murder EVERYTHING. IT. WAS. MAGNIFICENT.
that's the attitude. it's not a crime to completely play your character therefore your roleplay. I can recall many times the fighter of my party soloing encounters doing epic stuff and none of us ever got frustrated. that's the magic of roleplay!
@@BudgetNugs a high level trixter up-casting sleep with all their slots can put a lot of orcs to sleep. i up-cast sleep on just the big bad and one shot them unconscious
So this veteran player is willing to step back and allow others to get the spotlight, could have taken a character-nerfing multiclass just to cover party gaps, and is potentially going to willingly take part in an encounter that is built to break his character?
Sounds like a God-damn unicorn to me
Mhm, freakin' unicorn with a laser beam that turns things into chocolate.
Christopher Calvery no shit... Sounds like the kinda player every game needs 2 of!
To be honest, I'd be happy with like half that guy. May be a quarter, I'm not picky.
That unicorn is me with my druid. The others have no idea how to make decisions on where to go or what to do so my druid kind of guides them along. I take cues from the DM and make it seem like the group is deciding what to do. xD
It honestly seems like the REAL 911 here is the rest of the party is either god awful at the game or simply jealous of the guys super suave character.
He's Gandalf, you don't kick Gandalf out of your party just because he takes on the Balrog on his own.
Actually, they did... he did comebak with an even more powerful character after that xD
No-one kicked Gandal out of the group. He fell down a deep hole.
+Wizard Dragon The DM was like, "ooohkay, time to get my super-OP npc wizard off the board for a while..."
yup yup
Andrew O'Horo i
sounds like the other players are mad because they dont know their abilities as well
Robert Weber exactly what I thought.
You have to wonder how though considering that these are 10th level characters.
Might be wishful thinking but maybe this is a sign that they other players are finally becoming engaged with the game moreso then they have been.
or they're all beastmaster rangers
I'm guessing it's more likely the DM and Dr. Strange or whatever this character is don't get the mechanics, the game is designed to prevent this situation.
This sounds like the GM/Player are misunderstanding multiclassing somehow. Or the other players really arent using their own characters to full effect.
It's hard to say without knowing what everyone is playing and how they play. I just get the impression that the veteran, having more play experience, just knows how to play his class(es) more effectively. And having him change his character would be pointless.
Dave un-throws out the start of the solution at 08:10. Let the player sit his character to one side for a session. Let him run a single class character for a session. Brakes off. Let the player show them how it is supposed to be done. Embarrass them. Sounds like this player might even be able to do it with a handicap of minus 1 or 2 levels...
Then sit the players down and work through their limitations.
*Then* follow up with the great story/dick move of playing up the "Renowned" aspect and "demonstrate" all over the "overpowered" character.
Of course, there's a limit to how much you can educate players who insist on acting like children.. one thing that's not covered is whether the other players _are_ children
DragSorc4/TomeLock4/LoreBard2
he must be the only caster!
We'll bounce over to your forums for more details, but from the short description it sounds like a player cleverly navigated an encounter by using all of his character resources at once. This is clearly not a mechanically optimized build, but you can definitely build some potent gamebreakers into it, especially if the combat circumstances are in his favor. When a PC steps up and does something awesome, a good player cheers their compatriot on, rather than being threatened by it. Finding a gem of a player like this should be an exciting learning experience that many players never get, rather than a threat to their egos. Resenting the success of a compatriot isn't really good player behavior.
But if the group decides to limit his creativity and he (likely and rightfully) drifts politely away from your table, point him our way. He's sounds like the perfect player.
Here is how the Warlock and sorcerer character functions. They quicken their Eldritch Blast which at tenth level is 2 attacks. They then cast it again. Each attack with Eldritch Blast Deals 1D10 + cha mod damage plus most likely 10 ft knock back, and 1D6 damage per hit if they also have hex up.
When the character uses this two times they then use their warlock slots which are 2nd level to gain more sorcery points.
If the character is main focused in charisma this can add up pretty nasty like. At level 11 he gets a third attack with each casting.
At sorc. 4th you have 7 sorc points max. That means you can use that blast combo twice. At 4the lvl warlock you get two spell slots if you cast hex ever that only leaves one to turn into sorcery points. Dm said it revolves around dissonant whisper too. This is what he's doing. Hex on enemy, quicken dissonant whispers and then twin eldritch blast. That puts out 3d6 +1d6 for whispers and 4d10+4d6+4×cha bonus. That's a lot of damage per round for the price. See the dms issue now. Lots of solution to counter. I can counter with a 3rd lil bard or wiz. Familiar + invisibility +silence. This character lacks the magical abilities too counter most 10lvl straight casters cause he focused on a one trick damage combo.
@@blucky1333 except u can't twin Eldritch Blast
MasterfulPaladin True, but you can quicken it. At lvl 11 -> 9 Divine Soul Sorcerer(Feats: War Caster, CHA up to 18), 2 Hexblade Warlock: Including Hex, Hexblades Curse and Agonizing Blast thats 2x(3d10 + 3d6 + 3x4 +3x4) = around 72dmg/Round on average if everything hits, plus Crits on 19/20. If you wanna go full nuke, you drop the Hex for Animate Objects (throw 10 ballbearings at your enemy and go "Kill that!") for another 10d4+40/round and pick Protector Aasimar for another 11dmg/round thanks to Radiant Soul for good measure. All in all, thats around 125 dmg/round for 4 rounds in a row.
Additionaly, you can fill your other spellslots with spells like Absorb Elements (if an high-dmg spell should hit you, even though - if push comes to shove - you can add 2d4 to one saving throw per short rest thanks to "Favored by the Gods"), Sanctuary, Aid, Revivify and Cure Wounds(with "Empowered Healing" if needed) for keeping you and your party alive. At lvl 13, you can even Twin-Cast Heal. At the same time, the Hexblade subclass gives you prof. in Medium Armor and Shields for a relatively high Caster-AC.
Yes, this guy could use teammates like a Protector-Fighter with a shield and the Sentinel Feat to compensate for the SorLocks rather poor HP-pool(although, the lack in HP can be optimized by casting Aid before venturing out). Or a Rogue to scout dungeons. Or a Cleric if he gets Feebleminded. But its not hard to see that they will probably feel like "extras" to his "leading character" in the adventure.
Lots of easy-ish solutions since the sorlock is a one-trick pony.
- if the character doesn't have spell sniper give the enemies great cover
- have them fight in a very narrow twisted tunnels rather than big open arenas so getting a visual on the enemies is challenge.
- use enemies that can burrow or ambush so your long-distance sorlock finds themselves immediately surrounded by enemies
- add enemies that do lots of ranged AoE attacks and/or apply various conditions (charmed, frightened, paralyzed) or that grapple on attack (good luck with those dissonant whispers when a giant croc has got their jaws around you).
- use large numbers of fast moving enemies that work together rather than individuals that can get picked off by the sorlock.
And the best solutions:
- give the other characters really awesome magic weapons/items so they rival the Blast+Hex for damage output then crank the difficulty. If necessary make them only attunable by specific classes/races so the sorlock can't use them.
- add in tons of non-combat and non-social challenges that the sorlock's going to suck at that feel just as dangerous/important as the combat encounters - e.g. crossing a river of lava, climbing a really high cliff. Or put in "puzzle" combats where no matter how many enemies the sorlock blasts out of existence more keep coming.
@@agilemind6241 The Sorlock can have crazy single target DPR with the combination of hex, hexblade curse and quickening eldritch blast. I've been at tables where the sorlock is doing 80+ damage per round at level 11. If someone in your party casts haste on you it gets even more crazy, 120+ damage. If you don't want to use hex you can cast darkness on yourself and with elvish accuracy spam crit your EB.
Combined with taking an Elf you can take 4 short rests at the end of your long rest to create more spell slots.
The problem is this only works great on a single strong target, if you get rushed by 30 kobolds he cannot so much.
I really appreciate this response. It's great to here "step up your game," instead of nerfing the one guy doing well.
Kudos.
I offered advice to some players about how to optimize their characters once. They were simply not interested. When my life cleric soloed an end of arc encounter while repeatedly using Healing Word to keep the party up as they fell turn after turn they looked at me with a surprised pikachu face.
Thanks Nerdarchy! I like the solution of using the Archmage to shut him down. Maybe even adding some Counterspell into the BBEG just to tie it all together. We did sit down with the other players - I think part of the issue is that we have a veteran optimizer sitting with a bunch of newer players less interested in going the optimized route. We have:
- Dwarf Barbarian (Berzerker) dual wielding axes
- Half Elf Paladin (Ancients) sword'n'board Protection
- Halfling Rogue (Assassin)
- Human Cleric (War) war hammer
- High Elf Wizard (Necromancy)
As for what the Warlock does: cantrips cantrips cantrips, with Warcaster and Quicken Spell. In the moments that sort of "triggered" all this, he either 2x Eldritch Blast (regular + Quickened) or Quickened Dissonant Whispers, opportunity Booming Blade (Warcaster - this also triggers the extra 3d8 for moving) then standard action Eldritch Blast. That's a Lvl1 Spell + 2 cantrips + 2 sorcery points to do something like 3D6+4D8+2D10+Dex+2*Cha +Hex(3D6). The rest of his spells are mostly meant for out-of-combat and social stuff; Charm, Disguise Self, things like that, and his second Metamagic option is Subtle Spell, so that when he's actively "facing" he can play lots of mind games.
And for the rest of you - yeah, it's the best table I've had in a long time (maybe ever). It's the remains of a defunct group, a new player, and then my DMing and my friend actually plays the Warlock.
Only problem I could see with the character is a misunderstanding of multiclassing. What if the character has slots like a 10th level full caster that regens on short rests and is 10th in 3 classes. That would be op. I had to help a player once understand this is not how multclassing casters work.
It's pretty clearly a Cantrip centered caster, which are good, but not overpowered... Without more information... Who knows?
It's possible they were playing a Coffeelock with those sorcerer and warlock levels and tomb pact which might have seemed pretty strong and the sorcery point limitation Nerdarchy points out wouldn't have been applicable. Coffeelocks can really burn sorcery points most rounds.
Though the bard levels are weird, possible that it was just some flavor levels and a deliberate nerf in response to the other player's feelings about their character and chose bard to have some themes and team support to help them feel better with their characters.
Another option: Throw in a couple more magic items that are great for the other players, then if need be adjust the CR of your combats upwards. This ought to challenge everyone together.
The one and only problem in this scenario are the other players. The end.
It sounds like he is Quickening Eldritch Blast (which scales with over all level) and is using Hex. He is also trading the Warlock spell slots for spell points every short rest, which is near limitless supply of spell points. Anti Magic Shell hard shuts this build down. Also weak against multiple targets.
You heard the man throw a beholder at the party.
This is a DM problem. They are planning for mechanics rather than role play. The other players don't have their "shine" moments. Make a stealth adventure. Make a health-based trap or team-based trap. Have the characters get separated. Have an NPC fall in love with another character.
They talked about shutting him down. Why not boost up the other players?
if the party felt like he was a detriment to the party because he was too powerful it's because you haven't given them the fear. early levels get scary when ghouls and rogues team up. high level games have even crazier monster options.
make sure the fights are interesting and scary and every resource gets appreciated.
After typing a long and ranty post, i think i can summarize it with one phrase that many players have heard time and time again: "It's my turn now? Sooo... what can do?"
On my character sheets I make a list of actions, bonus actions, and reactions, and put in the relevant die rolls w/ modifiers, if something can be activated, etc...
It works great because like with my Monk, if I do something other than the Attack action, I can quickly look at my list of bonus actions to see if I can do anything quickly without having to read through all of my class abilities' full texts.
Turns go much faster! I'm not a new player but it still helps me with speed, and for new players it really helps them focus down on what they want to do.
Some people are just completely indecisive, but that can be helped too...
I kinda want to see the long version now.
scabbynacker I realize this is 8 months ago, but I wanted to let you know that I think this is a great idea and I'm going to use it for my husband and his friends who are new players
Honestly I wonder if either the players are unintentionally playing the rules incorrectly for this character if the other players made poor builds.
Also the guy with the good character has played the way he is supposed to, as a team member. And Dave is right, any character he makes, based on how the group seems to work, he will make a character that can obliterate everyone else's.
Level 2 Bard, Level 4 Warlock, Level 4 Sorcerer.
Spell slots:
1st = 4
2nd = 3
3rd = 3
Warlock gives an extra 2 2nd level Spell slots.
Spells known:
5 from Warlock
5 from Sorcerer
5 from Bard
10 Cantrips (3 + 5 + 2)
He would also have 8 extra spells from the Expanded Spell list he gets from whatever pact he chose.
Under multi-classing it says:
Pact Magie. If you have both the Spellcasting class feature and the Pact Magic class feature from the warlock class, you can use the spell slots you gain from the Pact Magic feature to cast spells you know or have prepared from classes with the Spellcasting class feature, and you can use the spell slots you gain fram the Spellcasting class feature to cast warlock spells you know.
The character would have 23 spells at level 10, with 12 spell slots to burn through with Flexible Casting. Because of the above rule, he can cast his Warlock spells using his 3rd level slots, and after taking a short rest he gets his two 2nd level Warlock spell slots back, which can be converted to 2 sorcery points each before taking the rest. Others in the comments have already talked about the combos.
Wouldn't he only get his Warlock spell slots back per short rest, though? The slots that are the fewest?
Yeah you're right. Only his two 2nd level slots would recharge from a short rest. He can still devour those two spell slots for 2 sorcery points each though before taking a short rest.
You can also regain your sorcery points by expending your pact magic slots.
Is this player so clever as to "out play" the others?
Are the other players so new as to be confused?
Is the "offending" player the only one engaged?
Are the other characters poorly built?
Is the DM offering preferential treatment?
Because as it sounds, the other players just need to step up and get engaged. A single-class full caster should be rocking this table.
A Rogue's Sneak Attack should almost one-shot some foes.
This sounds less like a GM issue, or even a single player issue. This sounds like a rest-of-the-table issue where other players just need to engage more.
Seriously guys, whomever you are, the game (most of the time) is only as good as YOU make it. Get in there. Mix it up. Take risks.
If you feel you're being outshined, "shine louder" (despite the weird concept of loud light).
The GM, for his point, needs perhaps to create plot or encounter moments designed to make the other players more integral.
Otherwise, if this M/C continues to outshine others, he does so because he's the only one engaged or being engaged.
I just wanted to say that Nerdarchy is one of my favorite youtube channels and that you guys have helped me so much with creating my campaign. Thanks!
Thanks for the shout out!
Ok so correct me if I am wrong but as a sorc he can canabalize his Warlock slots then get a short rest to get those slots back with out losing the sorcerer points. allowing for a lot of low level spell casting. Which I didnt think was THAT bad there are a lot of good spells that dont "scale" but also are still good at every level..... or thats my thought so far.....
I once had a friend who was playing an arcane trickster rogue, and he decided to scout ahead into an orc camp. He assassinated 4 orcs that were awake, put 16 orcs to sleep, slowly walked around the table and split each ones throat, and basically did the dungeon by himself, while me and 3 other players just spent half an hour watching him absolutely murder EVERYTHING. IT. WAS. MAGNIFICENT.
Really impossible to answer without knowing what the other characters are, and how experienced the other players are. There shouldn't be that much disparity unless the other players are really fresh. This character should be fairly squishy hp and ac wise. Some NPC tanks might be able to pound him down pretty quickly. Creatures that are resistant or immune to mind-control spells should be able to make easy work of him. A newfangled wood elf ranger with a decent AC that can sneak up on him will be making saves vs. charm at advantage, will force him to make cantrip attacks at disadvantage, and should be able to make mincemeat of him with multiattack, hunter's mark, and other whistles and bells in 2-3 rounds tops.
Let the veteran use one of the other character in in a mock battle
warlock is arguably the best class to multiclass in, as it's primary means of dealing damage, Eldritch blast, only requires one invocation to be better damage than a longsword wielding fighter, then as eldritch blast scales with character level, you lose almost no combat effectivness as opposed to straight warlock, alowing room for whatever crazy class combinations you want, I hear fiend pact bladelock/ eldritch knights are fun
He is capable of funneling Warlock Spell slots into Sorcery Points, and have a ton of slots on short rests. Warlock is a powerful class to multiclass with as any spell caster and a lot of strong options as non-full casters. So what im thinking is that this guy is funneling all of his warlock slots into sorcery points, and using points for twinning hex (which you can use any spell slots you have for any spells you know) and just blasting them with Eldritch Blast, and using his Inspirations to make other characters work better. His current build is very strong despite not being able to cast higher than 2nd level spells (but can cast spells at 3rd level).
We have a Warlock who does at level 4 on average 20-30 dmg per round and has the same hit points as two of our fighters. The other characters do in general maybe 10 dmg per round(ranger, fighters, rogue) and they hit insanely worse. I always wonder how a lv 4 warlock can triple the dmg of almost any other character while being relatively tanky at the same time (33hp 16 ac - same as one of our fighters)
By the sounds of things, a Null Magic zone would also illustrate the weakness of a multicaster. But this is like extinguishing the fire, but not stopping it from happening again. By 10th level people should have a decent handle on how their characters act, ever consider just sitting down with the players and going over alternative choices? It will probably put a bad taste in a lot of mouths, but by expanding how they view things it might improve player cohesion.
Also, not sure if anyone pointed it out but I think I figured out the Archmage has spell resistance. He is an Abjurer. They get an ability of Spell Resistance.
I know it sounds insane, but my multi-classed Monk-Warlock was the most OP character I've ever played.
Try adjusting the pacing, more encounters per rest will means he'll need to ration his sorcery points. Also more mooks, more low level monsters give players something to do, negates unbalance damage output, and will force him to either restrain from using metamagic or wear him down. Also they groups can use more sophisticated tactics and force the players to act as a team.
Remember characters have disadvantage on ranged attack spells like Eldritch Blast while in melee. Also Hex, though powerful, is a concentration spell so make sure he's making those checks.
Remember once charm or friends end the target realizes what happened so its a short term solution that can lead to problems down the line. Its reasonable for your villains to setup safeguards against such tricks after its happened once or twice and if they're using it on NPCs will give them a realy bad reputation really quickly. Use this to set up morally ambiguous situations where they're interacting with villagers or the town watch rather then straight villains. Consider something like a thieves guild where it's better for them to... um... bluff their way through honestly rather then use magic or risk making powerful enemies.
You can balance things out a bit with magic items... by level 12 you're party should have a couple decent weapons. Its always seemed to me that the way the game is set up blasty characters should get the defensive items and stabby characters should get offensive ones.
He sounds like he's focused on dealing damage and I'm betting he is fairly squishy. I've been playing a fighter built to be a body guard type and it doesn't bother me that much that I'm not dishing out as much pain as someone else because I know they can't take as much punishment as me. It is important to make sure they know their abilities... I may not be optimized to damage but I can still dish out enough to rival a spell caster if I want to thanks to feinting attack and action surge. I don't know if they have a fighter but if so make sure they know that once per short rest they can make six attacks.
Here's my personal favorite 'I'm going to solo this campaign' build.
It comes online at level 8, but ~level 6 is when it is able to be a major threat. However, even before then, the build maximizes action economy usage and with the combination of GWF + War Cleric bonuses can tear through early stuff before it has its 'core' spells and abilities, as well as including hefty AC with the Defensive Fighting Style + best heavy armor you can get at the time.
1 level in Fighter (for Con saving throws, also a better level 1 start for lower level-starting campaigns than Cleric),
5 levels in Cleric,
2 more levels in Fighter.
War Cleric, Eldritch Knight. Variant Human. Warcaster is the only mandatory feat, taking it at level 4 of Cleric (level 5 overall). For your Variant Human feat, I take GWF for the early level strength and the synergy with War Cleric, but a shield + sword build and, say, Lucky is fine. Defense Fighting Style.
Your primary goals of the build are to hit level 5 Cleric, ie. level 6 overall for Spirit Guardians, and level 8 for Eldritch Knight to get the Shield spell. Finally, it's in no way required, but level 10 for extra attack from Fighter. Full plate, two handed weapon (or one handed + shield if you really want to make sure you don't die, getting the most usage of Spirit Guardians in the process, but I use two handed just because of GWF).
Your first turn of combat will usually be Action Surging to use Spirit Guardians, attack action, War Cleric bonus attack.
Your second turn of combat will be attack action + Spiritual Weapon, unless you have a reason to use another War Cleric bonus attack (usually you save them for rounds when you really need the burst). With this, every turn, you have Spirit Guardians aoe + slowing, a normal attack (with potential GWF and War Cleric +10 chance to hit if you know your attack will miss) and Spiritual weapon to all deal consistent dps without expending too many resources over an encounter.
With Warcaster, at least 16 Con, and Fighter's Con saving throws, when you take damage you will never be at any real risk of losing your Spirit Guardians, making you a consistent threat even during turns you're healing yourself, as well as preventing enemies from fleeing due to reduced movement.
However, on turns when you don't really want to get hit, you have the Shield spell as a reaction.
You save your level 1 slots for Shield, level 2 slots for Spiritual Weapon, and level 3 slots for Spirit Guardians,. If your GM allows, feel free to use level 2 slots for Shield as well even if it doesn't work RAW (since Shield has no higher level bonus). You also have usage of healing spells for the turns when you feel you need it, and you'll still be dealing damage with Spirit Guardians (guaranteed damage) + Spiritual Weapon (bonus action attack even if you spend the turn doing other stuff).
Given your Con, Fighter start and not awful Cleric hp gain, you'll be quite tanky, especially with Heavy Armor. Additionally, since you have Guidance, you can potentially abuse it constantly for initiative, among other skill checks, but that's entirely up to how you feel as a player and whether you want to abuse it. Also, gaining Find Familiar from Eldritch Knight allows for nice help actions and other uses, as well as being able to cast touch-range healing spells on allies at a distance (via keeping your familiar with them). It also includes using Guidance on distanced allies.
In short, the build uses the action economy excellently, is basically immortal in combat, has great skill usage with both Guidance and the help action, is a constant threat in combat even if he decides lay down on the floor and sleep, and uses very minimal spell slots to their maximum effect. Even if the rest of your party dies to the Armageddon itself, this character will still be alive, having just woken up from his shield-protected nap, only to proceed to the rest of the pilgrimage on his own.
The only real threats are campaigns involving heavy water (as you have Heavy Armor, but you can technically help action + Guidance to negate your disadvantage to swim, and strong Athletics skills by default) and Wisdom saving throws, but even then, most of them aren't super life threatening. By the time you reach the higher levels where they are, you'll probably have a third feat where I'd throw in either Lucky for global safety, Resilient for Wisdom saves, or Tough if the GM has really upped the encounters with far stronger enemies just to break your insane, fortress-like defense.
A minor thing, but you also get the whole Eldritch Knight bonding thing, so you're not at risk of losing your weapon and you can additionally keep something like, say, a Javelin for the very few times when you can't reach someone in close range, allowing for repeated use. So help you if you find a magical weapon, but I made this character with the assumption you'd never find any. Don't want to rely on things outside of guaranteed stuff you can put in the build.
Finally, I should note that I've only ever used this character twice - once when I first created it and it worked to an absolutely insane degree, and I felt bad because it completely overshadowed the other players even though I didn't think it'd do that well without the level 5 extra attack of most classes (it out-dpsed that by a long shot, by the way), and I did my best to stop hogging the spotlight, and another time with a GM who treated the game as a guaranteed death campaign. Needless to say I never died, even when he started trying to use 'rocks fall, everyone dies' traps.
I didn't really want to put this build anywhere because I don't want to risk seeing others run this it, as I've never seen anyone make anything even remotely close to it - but, hey, felt like sharing it since you guys do great videos.
i remember the first campaign i played, where i wasnt really abnormally strong, but everyone else had buildt their characters sub-optimally which made me stronger by comparison. it got really frustrating after a while to constantly be called OP, it happened in basically every encounter, and often it was due to pure luck or spells that were simply flashy and nothing more. by now ive basically become the group expert in character builds, and i still occasionally cant help but point out how my stats were fairly easy to produce equivalents of.
We totally don't know enough to judge fairly. The center of the question imo is: communication.
Communication between the DM and the players to put the game in a space that would make everyone happy altogether: planning scenarios that are centered on dynamics appealing to each of them, rotating through different ones if they prefer different things/a variety of them (door/monster/treasure is far from being the most enjoyable for me as an ex, i'd be bored to death after 3 sessions if there's only hack/slash/loot)
Communication from the players if they become tired of not being able to get a space under the sun from time to time. They should not hesitate to tell the DM what they feel about it. After the game ended, head-to-head with the DM and not in the middle of the group, and talking about this and how that could be done as responsible adults.
Communication from the DM if he sees something is amiss between its players, as a DM you don't want those things to linger, settling them one way or another is a key for not letting the whole roleplaying fall apart on the mid-term.
I'd be hard-pressed to make any assumption on what's going wrong in this particular case. I've changed my Pathfinder char once because after 2 sessions i felt not aligned with how i was able to play it compared to the other members of the party, and not being on the same note kinda grinds the pleasure on both side i guess. It wasn't related to power level or anything intense, but it's important to play the same game, and not only in the same game.
Checking this video out in 2020, I would argue it's obviously a situation of one player 'knowing what they are doing' and making the most out of their spells and abilities
Had a similar thing way back as a player, my DM would separate the party so the OP character had to clear one objective solo while everyone else cleared the main objective. Meet in the middle for the boss fight.
So, my intuition is that the GM is using a lot of monsters with resistances and the other players either don't have the tools to overcome the resistances or aren't changing their spells/attacks to overcome the resistances. You have to remember that Eldritch Blast is THE move for the Warlock, and with the Hex-Blast-Agaonizing Combo coming online early, this will put other people to shame. Plus, with using Dissonant Whispers it sounds like he is being smart about keeping enemies away from him, which means he's also moving and repositioning each round (and I suspect maximizing all of his actions each round). A lot of assumptions, but I can easily see his build performing super well in all 3 pillars of gameplay.
Based on set up [ posted before more info was stated ] .
It's ether .
A ) The DM's game ether is run in a fashion that favors the character .
Or
B ) The one player is very skilled and the other players are not so much .
I find that newer players tend to look in the PHB to find what they can do. Experienced players know to describe what they want to happen using the scene's environment, the situation with NPC's as well as their own character's skills and features. I think that if we were to watch this game live, you would find that whenever the veteran player's turn comes up, he is more active in creating the scene he wants while the newer players are just using their attack/cast options and letting things play out kind of like a board game. My group jokingly refers to experienced play as "blah, blah, blah...I win."
One possible route to go is to exploit the "but..." in the phrase "Great GM's say yes, but..." Since the veteran player is outplaying the rest of the table, make the "but..." for him more complex and challenging. Characters are there to suffer, not just win and it's not hard, even for a good player, to talk themselves into a pit of misery only the party as a whole can escape. The goal is to make the entire table think of creative solutions to their encounters instead of just one person.
I completely disagree with the "Characters are there to suffer". This game is about having fun while telling a story, if people only care about mechanics like this is some sort of raid on a MMORPG, then they are the ones in the wrong.
Well, the game is about players having fun. Fun in a game usually means overcoming challenges. The nature of challenge for a fictional character is almost always some form of suffering, even if it's something simple like fear of getting hit by an arrow.
The most common 5e mistake is computing level of spells known/prepared same as level of spell slots. It trips up new GMs all the time, which is likely the case here.
Depending on the multiclass, a good combo can outshine almost any straight up class in levels between 4-15.
As a power-player, I try to find cool and fun class and race combos. The one thing I'm unlucky is none of the campaigns I have played, has gone higher than level 6.
The diffrence may simply be that the player is a veteran player. A veteran, knows what power work together, sized up the party and is playing a key role. Also he is likely more assertive and asking more from the dm. A new player might not know to push and ask for more. Can I do this is a powerful ability. I know when I play, I am always among the most effective characters.
Maybe the issue is not mechanical, is how the other players feel regarding the current setting / campaign.
Eldritch blast + CHA + Hex * 2 (from the quicken spell). let me calculate that for you. 4d10+20+4d6. that is a minimum DPR of 28 and a maximum DPR of 84. He's had roughly that DPR since warlock3/sorcerer3. You're completely missing the point if you're focusing on spell slots. Spell slots are used solely to fuel sorcery point in this build. When this player levels up Bard to get expertise he'll dominate social situations with his massive +13 in social skills. This build is incredibly strong, and is only limited by the maximum amount of sorcery points you can have at a time. At 4 sorc that only allows for two quicken spells before you have to spend a bonus action converting slots, which regenerate on a short rest thanks to warlock.
if he uses the Social spells well, then he deserves to be "OP", he is just playing the game right
I always have this issue with bards. At a certain point they can heal as well as the cleric, blast as well as the wizard, fight as well as the fighter, and take things as well as the rogue.
I was playing an eladrin barbarian divine soul sorcerer in a curse of strahd campaign. I was doing more damage, on average per combat, then the monk and the great weapon master, combined. The problem for them was that they did not know how to speck their characters right. And, they missed more times then they hit. When they hit, they did more damage then I did. I tried helping them but al I got for trying, is: "you do your character and I will do mine." I spent more time healing them then should have been necessary, and I lost track of how many times I had to step into melee range to deal with something
I like the idea of the Arch-Mage taking the player captive and making the other players save him.
for multiclassing not being more powerful then a single class. fighter champion 11, oathbraker paladin 9. get to add your cha mod to damage with aura of hate, smite 3 times around, and have action surge to drop double the dice critting more often with 2 fighting styles, great weapon master and fighting, wielding that greatsword. and still not useless in combat after your smites are up because you can still attack 3 times per turn, with a potentially magic weapon. alternatively, go eldritch knight instead of champion to crit less but have more spell slots to smite with, plus action surge and a weapon bond.
i think that strictly martial multiclasses, or casters that dip into a martial multiclass hold up much better than mixing casting classes because of the limited level of spells, though you may have some higher level slots. but i love multiclasses that are for character reasons
If this dude lives in Seattle he's more than welcome at my table.
I find a multiclass char may be stronger in the mid game but lacks the power later in campaigns. I did however recently do a 1 shot where I played a Cleric 5 (life)/ Sorc 5 (draconic) and was a pure support class. We fought a newly born Lich and I basically spent all my higher spell slots to counterspell and my sorcery points and lower level spells were for healing and twin spells. I was rolling well with Con saves and was able to maintain my Beacon of Hope for a whole minute but the party basically walked away full health and not a scratch. To be honest I wasn't playing a character but a build for this game so I did min/max it a bit. Until you hit 10 the build would be very lackluster and afterwards it would still be sub par, it was just lucky that the boss was a caster.
Trouble with the archmage counter thing is that the player is a sorcerer. Twinned, Quickened and Subtle are all ways to get around counterspelling since countering uses your reaction.
Twinned - counter will have to choose one or the other
Quickened - spell + cantrip. Counter one
Subtle - can’t counter what you don’t see coming.
Twinned allows 1 spell to target 2 creatures. So 1 counterspell would still stop it. But once a twinned buff or debuff is cast, youd need 2 dispel magics to stop it.
I would assume he's going hex, cast it once a day and then keep concentration up, using a bonus action to apply it to another target whenever you run into them, eldritch blast (with repelling blast and agonising blast), and doubling eldritch blast a turn using quickened metamagic. It can put out an absolutely absurd amount of single target damage. The blast is hitting at least twice each cast, maybe 3 at that level, and each hit will be doing 1d10+1d6(Hex)+charisma modifier, so at least 4d10+4d6+(4)Charisma modifier, and pushing that target 40 foot away from himself. At level 11 he's going to be doing 6d10+6d6+(6) Charisma modifier, probably around 130 max damage a round, averaging about 65 damage and pushing that target 60 foot away.
After Tasha's Cauldron came out you can even build a pure sorc build with EB and hex once a day. All you need is magic initiate and the new eldritch adept feat. Variant human, this comes online at level 4 any other race without a beginning feat at 8. With this build you get to keep full sorc spell progression and do excellent single target damage with the sorc class. Take Mind Sliver to cast with a quickened control spell to aid in dc difficulty. It's a beautiful mix of form and function in a controller/blaster chassis. ( I know the origional post was pre Tasha's, I just watched this video and it goes to illustrate how good this combo has gotten without even the need to multiclass.)
sounds like a veteran on the table with a bunch of new players who haven't grasped their characters after 10 levels.
It seems very weird to be upset at having a really cool powerful character ON YOUR TEAM
Agreed. I've been the scrub teammate before, I was like "Save me my much more powerful friend." XD
Eldritch Blast (1-4 hits @ d10) + Hex (adds a d6 per hit) + Agonizing Blast invocation (+CHA mod per hit) which can be cast twice per turn with Quickened Spell for 2 sorcery points while exchanging his spell slots for more sorcery points is what I'm guessing this guy is doing. Possibly push targets around with the Repelling Blast invocation. It is also possible to eliminate disadvantage in melee if he took the Crossbow Expert feat. Just that is enough to surpass the damage capabilities of a fighter at any level. Plus, he's also getting utility spells and is probably going for bard's magical secrets. No wonder the other players are feeling underpowered. He could still be shut down, but it will require quite the effort on the DM's part which won't be very fun in the end. The way I see it, either the other players need to come up with similarly powered characters (possibly with some DM assistance) or he needs to go in a different direction.
+Martin Thank you for pointing out the Crossbow Expert feat. I never noticed the 'ranged attacks' wording on that feat. Handy!
+ROFLGoblin You can also achieve the same thing with the Close Quarters Shooter fighting style from Unearth Arcana: Light, Dark, Underdark! which comes with additional benefits, but requires multiclassing into either fighter, paladin or ranger.
I'd be willing to bet the player or DM stacked or otherwise didn't quite follow RAW for multi-class
There is always the option to, as I have done in some campaigns i have ran is to scale the damage with the h.p. (E.g. at 3/4 hp they do 3/4 damage and add 1 ac to their attack, 1/2 hp 1/2 damage 2 ac to attack 1/4 hp 1/4 damage and 3 to ac on attack).
The whole counterspell thing reminds me of what happened in a game I was playing. I have a rep among my group for being an expert, and being able to make amazingly powerful characters, partly deserved but mostly just because I introduced literally all of them to rpgs, and as such one of the first times one of them ran a game and had me in it, the second game actually, he did that kinda shit for EVERY encounter. Found out what was on my sheet, and set things up so every single encounter the spells at my disposal were useless for one reason or another. I was PISSED. TLDR: Great to do on occassion, but back to back to back to back is not.
Sounds like a couple good rolls made the other players jelly.
When the dice are flowing anyone can look good, maybe that's what the deal has been, this guy has just been doing amazing as far as dice rolls go. I mean hell, my group of 2nd level characters nutted up and fought a hydra, and just destroyed it, they rolled great, and the hydra rolled terrible almost every single turn.
i dont like suddenly making the character lv 20 but for this example ill do it: lv 10 dragon sorc and lv 10 lets say fiend warlock just to get some defence stuff from there. as a lv 10 sorc u have `10 sorc points + what ever points u convert from slotts. at lv 20 your blast is doing 1d10+5 ( not going to assume its lower) per hit with 4 times to use it. as a sorc u can quicken spell and cast again the blast for a extra 4 blasts. cast darkness on self to get advantage on your attacks and disadvantage to there attacks if they cannot see though magic darkness. and cast eldritch blast with quicken spell meta magic (assuming u took devils sight invocation). next turn just double eldritch blast with quicken spell using sorc points and convert your existing sorc level spell slots back into sorc points when needed. you are doing between 0-120 force dgm per turn (you might miss all attacks) and if you count in other invocations and feats you can extend at to 600 ft pushing back your target as well. while thanks to fiendish resistance you take half dgm from piercing attacks that have to hit you first as well while getting temp hit points. if you change darkness to hex you get a extra 32 dgm to your max. but thats just all numbers on what you can do with that type of build and is just boring saying dnd when you do all this stuff. ALSO with distance meta magic you can extend you range to 1200 ft.
I think certain multclasses are broken but normally from what I have seen if you multiclass into more then one other class it can get really messy and the build will fall short. Not saying you can't get a good build out of more then two classes but it's a lot harder.
Tell the GM to build his encounters more tactically, launch creatures in waves, have the creatures use the environment, and have creatures with crowd control and a tank.
from the sound of things this guy isn't being a dick, at our table we have a player who practically out of the gate was a killing machine with proficiency and bonuses on bloody everything, his per round damage is significant and a bit scary, I didn't get jealous or upset about it though. I found it a good way to challenge my own character and did things to ensure I could be just as useful, besides our DM pitted the party against a spell caster way to high for us and I ended up being the last one standing thanks to my obscene amount of hit points
Same could be said about a bear totem barbarian / fighter multi class. They are just monsters at throwing out damage/surviving.
If I'm not mistaken MCing is an optional rule. I think I could make it a table rule of only MCing into one other class. I know that wouldn't help here since they are already 3 classes, but I think in general it would help even out the parties you DM. (maybe?)
Little late but the reason this doesn't really help is because the more multiclasses you do the weaker you are I'm a Bladelock4/Eldritch Warden(op'd Homebrew) 2 and the entire party(of phb characters) outperforms me because they understand how thier characters work which is the problem here
He has basically unlimited sorc points because he can burn his short-rest warlock slots for them.
Betting he's Fiend pact and he has Scorching Ray. With Hex locked on he does 3d6 per ray with a 3rd level slot he throws 4 rays= avg 10.5 per ray= 42 if they all hit.
He can do this as a bonus action with 3 sorc points.
He can throw 2 eldrich blasts for 1d10 plus 1d6 (hex) plus 5 charisma. Thats 14 per ray. Max of 28.
So that's 70 points of damage in one round without crits. You also have invisibility in case you want to roll twice for each attack.
The Bard levels give him a persuasion check of +13. With guidance and advantage you've got a 30 on that check and you can give DISadvantage to someone with a bonus-action Hex. No save. Win every social encounter.
saytr4 q
counterspell might not work if this character. my best guess is that he spams eldritch blast with the warlock invocations and quickens them with metamagic so he gets to cast 2 really strong cantrips per round.
Nerdarchy guys are amazing - dominating my D&D watch list! Real discussions with multiple opinions.
If he's a time lock sorcerer he might be doing the combo for Infinite magic, but even then it's only second level spells and there is so many ways to make interesting encounters to challenge that. And he's letting the other players have there time to shine, I don't see what the issue is here
only stomp on a players face with their consent.
i trew a CR 7 revanent at a lv 6 warlock who died in one round (it was faster then expected), but it was discussed beforehand as he wanted to play a different character for a bit, and i had a way of bringing him back but it would take some time while also fitting quite nicely in the story. it was a challenge he literally couldn't win, but we decided on that together. if you want to show of a player might not be as powerful as the rest of the party thinks just discuss fucking him over.
In any comparison of power, folks need to seriously look at what they are likely to be facing. A level 10 party could easily be facing a pair of frost giants (CR 8, 138hp, two +9 attacks, averaging 25 per hit). Twining second level spells isn't going to do much if anything nor are you going to be able to maintain that for long.
what about a cleric/warlock multi class like the one created by dawnforged that is the ultimate healer in yalls options would you rather just have a normal healer?
This veteran player has obviously made a character that's gonna be effective for a lower level game. He's got a ton of cantrip's and can recover almost everything during a short rest. Once he's 15 or so he won't be anywhere near as effective.
One solution is to put things in his path with high saves against some / most of his spells and attacks. Fey and illusions are good things to put there, or put them in the underdark against the magic resistant dwarves.
The gm also might simply not be putting in enough stuff to keep everyone occupied.
I DM'd for a bunch of noobies and one guy actually did his research when he created his character, I helped as best I could with helping everyone ..but even if I spoon fed ideas and spells to the characters they wouldn't really use them to their best ability. So they all thought this not even optimized ranger was doing everything when the reality was that they were doing nothing. It was sad.
This build is amazingly powerful it is like getting 10 action surges on a caster. Eldritch blast with hex is great. D10+D6+charisma. At level 6,11 & 17 you get an extra attack. Thats right 4 attacks. This makes him more powerful than an average character, and now comes the power. With sorcerers quicken meta magic he can cast it again doubling his damage. So now he does as much damage as 3 other characters combined. At level 17 you can do 8 D10+8 D6+40 damage EVERY turn. Be subtle, go on a quest aruond the class of a different player where they might come across great armor for a dwarf, or an amazing bow for the ranger. Build the others up, dont pull this dude down.
Multiclass is really good when you have class that work well together, my forge cleric/battlemaster character is like if jesus was wearing plate and killing every things.
mechanically the Archmage has Globe of invulnerability, making him immune to the Warlock's spells entirely if you need to bully the Warlock to showcase his weaknesses.
but this sounds like a social problem, not a mechanical problem. the Warlock 4/ scorcerer 4/ Bard 2 combo has loads of utility low level stuff and if its a booklock he could have 12 or more cantrips so he has a thing he can do in most circumstances. i play something similar (booklock8 cleric 2 with magic initiate feat) and have loads of utility and around the table ive noticed that the more restrictive class players (the fighter Paladin and the monk) shine at fewer times than me or the wizard. so maybe there is a class distribution problem with the other players, or simply a lack of experience in the other players.
this warlock being commented on seems a little bit weaksauce tbh. with the right Sorcerer archetype they gain access to the same spells (except that 2 level dip for hex) and could really lay down serious mechanical hurt more effectively than the three way split in the original (because Hex + up levelled magic missile or searing bolt is filth)
but i think it is the vast utility and imagination of the guy that is making the newbies feel left behind. and thats hard to get around other than experience and encouraging them to try cool things. they just need to build confidence
I think i see what this guy is doing, twin hex give them each disadvantage on what ever their attack rolls are, then focus one of the hexed targets with spells using quicken spells eldritch blast to cast it twice for like 4 attacks or quicken spell eldritch blast and dissonant whispers.
I'm pretyi interested in more details about this build actualy.... (stats, race, proficiency's, spells,...)
he is probably quicken spell the eldritch blast so he can cast as a bonus action then casting it again as his main action
He's quickening eldritch blast. 4d10+4d6+(chs x4) that's an average of 50 damage assuming he has an 18 chs
Either using hex for the extra 4d6 (which you listed) or something like darkness for advantage for him/disadvantage for enemies.
Read the original post, helpfully placed below the video
Original GM 911 Post-
Oh, cool, thanks. The 911 is that I have a
veteran player at my table who runs a really cool Warlock - great back
story, slick playstyle, and very tight mechanically;
DragSorc4/TomeLock4/LoreBard2(going to 12). He's a great person at the
table too; despite his character being the only Cha-based class in the
party, he doesn't automatically "face" every encounter, and despite
being able to lay out the hurt with Eldritch Blast and Metamagic, he
tends to just play the basic 1Spell/turn.
He doesn't spam his Eldritch Blast. The other players are just salty.
Twice per long rest, takes two turns and not every blast hits.
Level 6 Wizard can cast Fireball/Lightning Bolt twice per long rest and by hitting two targets with one of them they "do" 16d6 per cast. Level 12 Sorc casts twinned Disintegrates that does 20d6+80 (average 150) in one round. Boom! Headshot!
Barbarian 2/Rogue 18 is one of the best multiclass combinations in the game. Go Half-Orc and wield a rapier with Strength.
Well, they have Rage 2/long rest, but when even when they don't rage they have Unarmored Defense, Reckless Attack for at will Sneak Attack, Danger Sense of advantage on Dexterity saving throws, Uncanny Dodge, Evasion, Elusive, 9d6 Sneak Attack...lots of goodies. Assassinate on this build is amazing, especially if you go Half-Orc, because then you're getting double weapon damage on a crit too. If you start Barbarian to have higher hit points, etc, just grab Resilient (Dexterity) at some point with one of your many ASIs. And don't forget that you can use Finesse weapons with your Strength, so you can get your bonus Rage damage and take advantage of your Half-Orc's +2 STR.
Another way to abuse this build is to go Mountain Dwarf for +2 STR and CON. I have a friend currently playing a Barbarian 2/Rogue 8 in one of our games and he's got a 24 AC (20 DEX and CON a shield and an Animated Shield) and he's our tank, he just dodges out of the way of everything, and it annoys the heck out of the DM, but it's a lot of fun to watch him play.
just know that there is inherent problem with duel wielding and rage, both use a bonus action.
About the only way I can possibly see 'breaking' the game with the character mentioned here is if he's being allowed to spend many hours of short rests cashing out his warlock spell slots for 1st or 2nd level sorcerer / general spellcaster spell slots. That could break the expected action value economy if he's allowed to regularly load up with a dozen or so extra 1st level spell slots before an adventuring day.
Barring those sorclock shenanigans, the penalties for that level of caster class division should let any standard sort of spellcaster have moments to shine. Mostly this sounds like an issue of newer players being envious of this guy's better understanding of the 'right' choices to make when it matters.
At lvl 10 with that build, he has like 13 cantrips, 3 bonus proficiencies, charisma synergy through the 3 classes, and probably enough 'lock to make the eldritch blast hit hard. He's probably gunning for the ritual magic through his tome as well. I'm not surprised he's extremely powerful in his group.
Anyway, he already has most of the strongest components of his build, as the group moves from lvl 10-20 the other party members stand to gain more I think. For example, while he'll always have way more 0 level cantrips than his peers, this guy's never going to get any 8th or 9th level spells, and significantly less 5th/6th/7th slots, & many of his cantrips won't scale up well.
He's a swiss army knife, who looks super-capable compared to the daggers around him ...for now. But those daggers will grow up to be swords, and he'll grow up to be a modestly larger swiss army knife. If anything, his party should regard him as someone who's heavily covering utility, so they are more free to specialize.
Rakshasas are the bane of all multiclass spellcasters.
I like the pure warlock. I don't ever try and multiclass them with anything.
Tom Hicks ikr. it's a very fun class.
I can see dipping a single level into Fighter, if I was running a Bladelock. Mostly just for the ability to wear better armor. Take the "Thirsty Blade" Invocation when you can, and you'll be able to run it as a competent gish.
Most fun I've ever had with pure Warlock was with eladrin from 4.0. Zipping around the map hitting enemies from all angles, running straight at enemy caster then instantly swapping places with the party tank...great fun.
In 5.0 I'm playing a Sorlock and I have to say he's fairly op in the right situations. I wouldn't want to try soloing a campaign with him, but he's a definite asset to the party.
The Warlock train has no brakes.
Sometimes a veteran player just knows how to operate. Not all vet players are good at teaching other players. Apparently this guy pulled his character in to allow the group to get in some damage. The DM could twink out the other players with a few items but increase the overall difficulty. Idk... as a new player when I saw an awesome player I literally took notes and asked for a better explanation after the game. A first level character can toss a jar filled with oil and marbles and use an ignite cantrip to set the oil ablaze and look like a hero. New players just don't think of shit like that. I personally think the other players need to up their game.
Just sounds to me that the veteran player knows the tools in his tool box and how to use them and even creatively. Role Playing - Think a "MacGyver" character instead of a "Terminator" Type
What exactly is it that makes this character so problematic? What even is the build, and what makes it powerful?
at least you sound fair I mean how does this sound, when I was playing a Summoner in Pathfinder my Eidolon and my spells together were so powerful (basically my Eidolon AC and HP made it tankier than our tank players monster based paladin and me being the only spellcaster...) my GM decided to keep throwing Anti magic field zones at my party shutting down both my spells and summon until we figured out how to turn it off...forcing my to use a crossbow and take a crossbow feat just so I could do SOMETHING ... sad part is I hit my Targets more than our party's ranger...) my group was compromised of a alchemist/gun slinger , a large naga paladin, and a tengu ranger and they got anoyed that my Summoner outclassed them (saying I kept trying to use magic to solve any issue) I don't get what I did wrong I'm a spellcaster I use magic to deal with things and I have to suffer because I'm basically a one man party?
This guy has made an amazing character... why should he be put down or told change it, when it sounds like the other people dont have great builds or bad luck with dice. Good job on him for pushing the bounds of a normal character and going for something excitingly new.
My current group's tank has 3 attacks at level 5 durgar battlerager and hits for around 1d4+17 on his final strike... I haven't heard one complaint from any of my other players. Not, one.
Sounds like the DM should just be happy the player pulls back to let others have fun.
Multiclass shines at low lvls....of which all the instances of overpower would have occurred.
I once had a friend who was playing an arcane trickster rogue, and he decided to scout ahead into an orc camp. He assassinated 4 orcs that were awake, put 16 orcs to sleep, slowly walked around the table and split each ones throat, and basically did the dungeon by himself, while me and 3 other players just spent half an hour watching him absolutely murder EVERYTHING. IT. WAS. MAGNIFICENT.
that's the attitude. it's not a crime to completely play your character therefore your roleplay. I can recall many times the fighter of my party soloing encounters doing epic stuff and none of us ever got frustrated. that's the magic of roleplay!
I hope in game, someone brought sandwiches for that party while you were watching the show.
How many sleeps? Cantrip sleep? Did he sleep? Long rest?
@@BudgetNugs a high level trixter up-casting sleep with all their slots can put a lot of orcs to sleep. i up-cast sleep on just the big bad and one shot them unconscious