D&D 5E Desperately need help, trying to catch up to party.

[Yardiff]

Life is tough kid. Maybe you need some higher stats to deal with it?

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Continuing with the snide comments. I understand it makes you feel 'superior' when you make these types comments.

 

[Oofta]

A barbarian raging and using reckless attack significantly improves outcomes going from an AC 14 to an AC 19. Using the +5 attack, the chance to be hit goes from 84% to 58%. If the barbarian takes 8 attacks in the combat, he goes from being nearly assured of taking 5-6 hits to only taking 3-4. That's a marked difference.

Further, on the damage output side, you've assumed GWF being available, which is a feat that's available due to not needing an ASI to improve attack chances, hitpoints, or AC.

This greatly warps how effective a barbarian is. I've seen it in my home game -- I had a 1/2orc barbarian that focused on CON and defense and carried a 14 STR. He could soak all day long but had very poor damage output and was unlikely to improve it as he spent his ASIs on improving CON and DEX. When he picked up a Belt of Stone Giant strength, he maintained his huge defensive ability and suddenly started being one of the top performers on the offensive side as well (without GWM -- mostly crit hunting with reckless attack). The ability to have a high AC with damage reduction is even more important when you're offering advantage to attackers. Having a high STR as well makes Barbarian super good at melee combat -- superior to the fighter due to the at will advantage without resultant loss in tanking.

This is why I don't do the "items replace your ability score" items, they add to your ability score instead. Makes getting a stat bump item nice, but doesn't negate other decisions you've made along the way.

 

[Charlaquin]

Broken is a subjective word that I honestly don't worry about too much. I think more in terms of work I need to do as a DM. High stats introduce all sorts of changes, but the one I was trying to highlight here is the way some classes, out of the box, do a better job at leveraging high scores in secondary and tertiary ability scores. For those characters, being able to max 3 stats with your first three ASIs would be more meaningful than for other characters, which could leave those other characters feeling a little less special.

I didn’t use the word broken. My point was, the Classes that do a better job of leveraging high ability scores are designed to work alongside the ones that aren’t as good at it, even when both have high ability scores. They make up for it in other ways, so it isn’t something you should need to worry about as a DM. Unless you’re rolling Ability Scores and someone playing a class that leveraged high scores well rolled high scores and someone playing a class that doesn’t leverage them well rolled really low. But that’s a problem with rolling ability scores, not with the asymmetrical class design.

In the case of the OP, I'd say that the absurd ability scores are more likely a symptom of an overcharged game, not the cause.

I agree.

 

[Sadras]

Life is tough kid. Maybe you need some higher stats to deal with it?

Caliban you ruthless bastard

 

[Sadras]

I wouldnt want to run or play in a game where everyone has basically a 20 in almost every stat.

Just to give you an indication of our game - characters are 10th level and there is a house rule of only one 20 allowed, and that is only due to an in-game story element, where they were awashed with deific power which allowed them to attain the 20. The only other character that is permitted to have another 20 is a character with a Chosen*-styled background. Our table shies away from wuxia-styled games.

* Forgotten Realms term.

 

[Mort]

Actually the rogue is possible. Though only by multiclassing (Sor 3/Rog 5, Rog/Rng might also work):

Assuming +2 Weapon and Dex 20:

Booming Blade d8+5+3d6+2d8+2
Twinned: Another d8+5+2d8+2
Quickened Greenflame Blade added: d8+5+2d8+2(Int Bonus)+2
-> 74 damage (Hope I did not miscalculate - and of course he will be doing this only every second round, as he needs his minor action in the second round to make more sorcery points for another round of twin+quicken in the 3rd round).
If the enemy actually both move then it would be another 18 dmg avg, reaching 92 dmg.
Then add the mobile feat run away from the enemy and if they follow they get additional damage from Booming Blade.

Where are all the extra sorcery points coming from? At 3rd level the sorcerer gets 3 between long rests.

[edit] I guess you could swap spell levels for for extra spell points, up to 8 or so. Pretty costly exchange though.

 

[BookBarbarian]

In the case of the OP, I'd say that the absurd ability scores are more likely a symptom of an overcharged game, not the cause.

I think that is an astute observation.

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is why I don't do the "items replace your ability score" items, they add to your ability score instead. Makes getting a stat bump item nice, but doesn't negate other decisions you've made along the way.

Oh, aye. This was a SKT game where I was trying to keep to the aesthetic. Stat boosts aren't in my current game.

 

[Yardiff]

[MENTION=6846794]

How did things work with the group and the GM?

 

[Steffen Haeuser]

Where are all the extra sorcery points coming from? At 3rd level the sorcerer gets 3 between long rests.

[edit] I guess you could swap spell levels for for extra spell points, up to 8 or so. Pretty costly exchange though.

Changing spellpoints (we use the system from Dungeon Master's Guide) into Sorcery points of course. That's the reason why I can only do this every second round, as changing spellpoints into sorcery points requires a minor action. And if I notice spellpoints get tight, I can of course go to a less resource-intensive version like only using quicken no twin or even skipping it for a round (but usually I don't need to play conservative... the other caster-characters are usually out of spellpoints before me ^^).

And not costly. Asides from an occasional non-combat spell, the character does not need spellpoints. And the "occasional spell" is cheap as the character has only L1 and L2 spells. Usually I even have still enough spell points to do the occasional "Shield" in combat. Remember that the spells I quicken+twin are merily cantrips and do not cost any resources!

On our table though in the meanwhile Quicken and Twin in one round has been abolished (not only because of my character - we found out that after a while close to EVERYONE does something with Sorcerer, at least as multiclass - and other arcane caster options nearly disappeared - quickened+twin, if now the melee version or just quicken+twin firebolts just became too attractive and the damage output too high compared to other options).

We play very "story-based" though, a big part of the game evening is non-combat always, so we have probably less encounters than others (and no, we do not want to change this ;-) ).