D&D 5E How to Deal Uber Damage

[trentonjoe]

1d12+5d8+1d6+7

Is that alot (or to much) at 12th level. This is a melee attack at about +7.

 

[77IM]

Question for my peeps:

If I'm a rogue of 5th+ level I'm dealing Sneak Attack damage of +3d6, or +10.5 on average. When, then, does it make sense to use the Sharpshooter feat -5 attack/+10 damage option?

It seems like reducing my attack chace risks missing with a sneak attack. I can angle for advantage, but often, that's what's granting me sneak attack privileges in the first place. Often -5 is enough to cut your hit chance in half, so taking this option for anything less than double damage seems like a poor bet. With 20 Dex and a longbow (elf) your base damage is already 9.5 so it seems like you should only power shot when you can hit on a 10 or less. As rogues gain levels, the sneak attack damage begins to greatly exceed the +10 bonus from Sharpshooter, making the -5 penalty relatively less attractive.

 

[Celtavian]

Question for my peeps:

If I'm a rogue of 5th+ level I'm dealing Sneak Attack damage of +3d6, or +10.5 on average. When, then, does it make sense to use the Sharpshooter feat -5 attack/+10 damage option?

It seems like reducing my attack chace risks missing with a sneak attack. I can angle for advantage, but often, that's what's granting me sneak attack privileges in the first place. Often -5 is enough to cut your hit chance in half, so taking this option for anything less than double damage seems like a poor bet. With 20 Dex and a longbow (elf) your base damage is already 9.5 so it seems like you should only power shot when you can hit on a 10 or less. As rogues gain levels, the sneak attack damage begins to greatly exceed the +10 bonus from Sharpshooter, making the -5 penalty relatively less attractive.

Depends on other factors like AC of opponent, if you have a buff like bless, or advantage on attack.

 

[Zardnaar]

Question for my peeps:

If I'm a rogue of 5th+ level I'm dealing Sneak Attack damage of +3d6, or +10.5 on average. When, then, does it make sense to use the Sharpshooter feat -5 attack/+10 damage option?

It seems like reducing my attack chace risks missing with a sneak attack. I can angle for advantage, but often, that's what's granting me sneak attack privileges in the first place. Often -5 is enough to cut your hit chance in half, so taking this option for anything less than double damage seems like a poor bet. With 20 Dex and a longbow (elf) your base damage is already 9.5 so it seems like you should only power shot when you can hit on a 10 or less. As rogues gain levels, the sneak attack damage begins to greatly exceed the +10 bonus from Sharpshooter, making the -5 penalty relatively less attractive.

Without the archery style probably on low AC things like Ogres, bless can bring that up to AC 14 or so while advantage can make it AC16 or so. Bless+advantage AC 18-20 is doable if you have a high number to hit.
Speak nicely toone of the spell casters at level 7 (or before) and see if you can convince them to take greater invisibility.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Cheesiest option to maximise damage that I can think of?

15th level Druid.

Cast insect plague to get a swarm of biting locusts under my control, 20ft radius. Must be thousands of them.

Cast Animal Shapes to change any number of willing creatures that you can see within range into a large beast.

Thousands of large beasts appear crushed into the tiny area, squashing everyone.



Flaws: maybe the DM will (reasonably!) say that they are not willing creatures. In which case you would have to rely upon a sack of animal friend rats that you turn into brown bears or something. You should be able to get 50 or so. Not as exciting as thousands though.

 

[transtemporal]

Action surge. You cast 4 eldritch blast rays as an action, action surge to cast another 4 and quicken another 4 so you are dealing 12d10+50+12d6 damage to a dingle target. It gets worse depending on DM calls as you can in theory add metamagic ontop evry single one of those spells (just not that same spell) so you could in theory maybe get up to around 20d10+100+20d6 damage YMMV.

This post caused a bit of a stir in our group but just to make sure we've got the steps right, is it:

Action:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

Bonus action with Quicken:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

Action surge:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

12d10+60+12d6

I think the main thing here though is that Quicken seems to give you the equivalent of Action Surge every round, for 8d10+40+8d6 a round and a 16th level sor should have enough sp to do that all day long.

You lost us on the 20d10 etc though.

 

[transtemporal]

I never understood the want to completely break the game and outdamage others. Maybe in video games, but it seems selfish to overshadow everyone. And no I'm not talking about building a competant character for the party, im talking about building grossly overpowered characters just to break the game. The thing about it is that it just doesn't seem to promote any kind of fellow party well being and you will - never- be able to out damage a DM. Everyone posts these hilarious builds but its utterly pointless, if A DM wants to kill your he can, if he wants to challenge you he can. So few players seem to remember this. But then again that's just how I like to play, others play differently and I accept that, but I'll never understand I don't think.

I disagree. I think its exactly up to the players to challenge the DM this way because there may be things that are broken as written for their particular game, and this encourages the DM to think about that. I think this behavior can be detrimental to the group as a whole if powergaming becomes an expectation for the players and not everybody is onboard with that but until then, I think its fine (and fun).

 

[Zardnaar]

This post caused a bit of a stir in our group but just to make sure we've got the steps right, is it:

Action:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

Bonus action with Quicken:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

Action surge:
4d10 (eldritch blast base)
20 (cha)
4d6 (hex)

12d10+60+12d6

I think the main thing here though is that Quicken seems to give you the equivalent of Action Surge every round, for 8d10+40+8d6 a round and a 16th level sor should have enough sp to do that all day long.

You lost us on the 20d10 etc though.

20d10 doesn't work AFAIK. A high level Sorlock can quicken spells for something like 40 rounds IIRC.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I guess, it would be a good Idea to either restrict the -5/+10 modification to a once per turn, or a "as a bonus action you can..." Both possibilities are good to make the most obvious imbalances go away without totally removing the option.

Two handcrossbows with +10 damage each may indeed be too much, as without much optimizing, it should be roughly half chance to hit for double damage. In the playtest it actually was double damage (or better one time more damage).

 

[transtemporal]

20d10 doesn't work AFAIK. A high level Sorlock can quicken spells for something like 40 rounds IIRC.

Wowser. Is it worth throwing Empower into the mix? Or not worth the sp?