D&D 5E (2024) Which class is the most durable (level 1)?

[FrogReaver]

Yeah, a little cumbersome. Just falls in-line with how each productive round is amplified at low levels, just like how the incremental (as needed) aspect of lay-on hands is more important when it comes to making a partial healing decision vs a wasted overkill healing decision and which one will be better to prevent lv1 novadeath. I still lean to the barb for prevention of alpha/nova death.. EVENTUALLY the monk gets surprisingly good at that aspect (just not Lv 1)

Only problem there is that as barbs lose hp they become less durable on the next round. Fighter/Paladins can heal so they can maintain their durability for a few rounds.

I think too often we focus on what happens at full resources only instead of seeing how durability progresses through the day.

Raging Barbarians would have to take I think 18 bps damage to have the equivalent ehp of a full hp Paladin.

That could easily be using both cure wounds spells given loses for overheating.

If rage was always up and it was just bps damage types being encountered I’d give the barbarian an advantage just due to being more durable in a single round.

But rage may not be up, start of combat, out of uses, some control effect stopped it or the damage may not be bps.

For those reasons it’s hard for me to say barbarian is more durable overall at level 1. I think we can say he often will be.

 

[ECMO3]

Paladin's 40+ eHP is formidable. Lay on hands, as a bonus action is solid. Cure wounds starts to fall into the lost action economy category though.. which means more now with weapon mastery (sap or topple), also, the same thing previously mentioned about not completely scrapping dmg dealing.

You have a point in terms of Cure Wounds. One other thing to consider though is False Life through Magic Initiate. On a Paladin, this would give you 3 castings a day for 2d4+4 (9) temp hit points. And since they are temp, you can cast them out of combat and carry them into combat. This also solves the "overheal" problem as any time you run out of the temp hit points you can cast it and get the full hit point benefit, even if you are still at max "regular" hit points. You can still use LOH as a Bonus in combat use if they get into your real hit points and if it is a really difficult fight you have Cure Wounds as an option too.

Go into combat with 13+9 temp and get smashed for a crit for like 12 damage. On your turn LOH for the 3 and you are back up to 13, the max you could get out of a 2nd Wind, you still have more LOH remaining and you have the option of burning an action for another pile of temp.

Also Magic Initiate on a Paladin would let you get Blade Ward, which is situational but pretty powerful defensively and it would give you Truestrike which would let you dump Strength on a Sword and Board, max both Dex and Charisma and still use sap weapons (Flail, Longsword, Spear) effectively with Truestrike, while also now getting a +3 on a Cure Wounds instead of a -1 if you ever do use it.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

You have a point in terms of Cure Wounds. One other thing to consider though is False Life through Magic Initiate. On a Paladin, this would give you 3 castings a day for 2d4+4 (9) temp hit points. And since they are temp, you can cast them out of combat and carry them into combat. This also solves the "overheal" problem as any time you run out of the temp hit points you can cast it and get the full hit point benefit, even if you are still at max "regular" hit points. You can still use LOH as a Bonus in combat use if they get into your real hit points and if it is a really difficult fight you have Cure Wounds as an option too.

Go into combat with 13+9 temp and get smashed for a crit for like 12 damage. On your turn LOH for the 3 and you are back up to 13, the max you could get out of a 2nd Wind, you still have more LOH remaining and you have the option of burning an action for another pile of temp.

Also Magic Initiate on a Paladin would let you get Blade Ward, which is situational but pretty powerful defensively and it would give you Truestrike which would let you dump Strength on a Sword and Board, max both Dex and Charisma and still use sap weapons (Flail, Longsword, Spear) effectively with Truestrike, while also now getting a +3 on a Cure Wounds instead of a -1 if you ever do use it.

Yeah, overall that is alot of flexibility on extending your dmg taking day at LV1. If you really wanted to as well, you could tweak things and change species to give the reaction to reduce dmg then you are covering a bunch of scenarios... including alpha strike/nova scenarios. Of course mag-initiate for bladeward is now giving up the false life advantage... but some of the same role could be filled by stones endurance on the pali.

Sidebar: The flexibility of healing is pretty slick. It gets pretty nutty on the barbarian when you consider how much eHP you are healing with the new zealot's bonus action heals. That ability change seems to be undervalued. It's also on a subclass that doesn't have much mid-combat bonus action bloat to compete with that

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, overall that is alot of flexibility on extending your dmg taking day at LV1. If you really wanted to as well, you could tweak things and change species to give the reaction to reduce dmg then you are covering a bunch of scenarios... including alpha strike/nova scenarios. Of course mag-initiate for bladeward is now giving up the false life advantage... but some of the same role could be filled by stones endurance on the pali.

Sidebar: The flexibility of healing is pretty slick. It gets pretty nutty on the barbarian when you consider how much eHP you are healing with the new zealot's bonus action heals. That ability change seems to be undervalued. It's also on a subclass that doesn't have much mid-combat bonus action bloat to compete with that

When I rated the Zealot I rated it very high. Roughly on par with the berzerker.

Tier lists I watched also rated it high.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

When I rated the Zealot I rated it very high. Roughly on par with the berzerker.

Tier lists I watched also rated it high.

Must be the the difference between solid stats-based postings versus more opinion stuff I must be seeing, Isee alot of low opinionon the heal ability... but you have to consider the class that they are giving the healing ability to. They did a great job with functional differences with those subclasses. I love sword & board, 🛡 master zealot. Such a different way to play supported by the subclass where you actually think about when to activate reckless attacks (more often late combat). And then even when the HP is chiseled down, self-heal on zealy often is effectively healing for double the norm - resistance and all. I saw so many posts that were unenthusiastic about the bonus action heals... but in play experience that has been "+".... also I don't have to convince the cleric that against a physical BBEG that their healing would have more mileage (AC matters less against strong attacker and you are healing HP that will only drain at half the rate).. I can just do it myself

 

[Zardnaar]

Must be the the difference between solid stats-based postings versus more opinion stuff I must be seeing, Isee alot of low opinionon the heal ability... but you have to consider the class that they are giving the healing ability to. They did a great job with functional differences with those subclasses. I love sword & board, 🛡 master zealot. Such a different way to play supported by the subclass where you actually think about when to activate reckless attacks (more often late combat). And then even when the HP is chiseled down, self-heal on zealy often is effectively healing for double the norm - resistance and all. I saw so many posts that were unenthusiastic about the bonus action heals... but in play experience that has been "+".... also I don't have to convince the cleric that against a physical BBEG that their healing would have more mileage (AC matters less against strong attacker and you are healing HP that will only drain at half the rate).. I can just do it myself

Healing not great. But its on top of one of the best strikers in the game at levels that matter.

 

[TorgoTheWhite]

Healing not great. But its on top of one of the best strikers in the game at levels that matter.

Yep and banging the same drum, but:
1) healing on a class that probably has been halving the incoming dmg or at least a portion with the new monster manual.. its not truly a doubling effect, but it is extra mileage for your heals. Probably would be OP if it was healer/caster healing.
2) Bonus action on a martial that usually needs to keep playing offense to keep playing defense is huge... you don't worry as much about the martial action economy death-spiral... truly a good design choice there to not make this feature stank.